Tip: If anyone want to speed up the lecture videos a little, inspect
the page, go to the browser console, and paste this in:
document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 1.2
“The original idea of the web was that it should be a
collaborative space,
where you can communicate through sharing information.”
- Tim Berners-Lee
(One person often credited with inventing much of the internet as we
know it)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
## Before the internet, there was the ARPANET
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
* ARPANET, the precursor to the modern internet, was an academic
research project funded by the Advanced Research Projects
Agency, a branch of the military known for funding ambitious
research projects without immediate commercial or military
applications.
* Initially, the network only connected the University of Utah with
three research centers in California.
* ARPANET was a test of a then-novel technology called
packet-switching, which breaks data into small
“packets” so they can be transmitted efficiently across the
network.
* It also had a more practical goal: allowing more efficient use of
expensive computing resources.
* Computer scientists sometimes used ARPA money to buy computers, and
the agency hoped that ARPANET would allow universities to share these
expensive resources more efficiently.
* One of the first ARPANET
applications was Telnet, which allowed
a researcher at one ARPANET site to log into a computer at
another site.
## 1970: ARPANET expands
* By the end of 1970, ARPANET had grown to 13 nodes, including East
Coast schools like Harvard and MIT.
* Among the early nodes was Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), an
engineering consulting company that did the engineering work required to
build ARPANET.
* Each ARPANET site had a router known as an
Interface Message Processor.
* These cost $82,200, or half a million dollars in today’s money.
1.2 1972: ARPANET documentary
A window into the way of thinking about things in 1972:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_pj-4cPBW8
## 1973: ARPANET goes international
* In 1973, the ARPANET became international, with a satellite link
connecting Norway and London to the other nodes in the United
States.
* Hawaii also joined the network by satellite.
* At this point, the network had around 40 nodes.
* New ARPANET applications had begun to emerge.
* Email was invented in 1971 by a BBN engineer named
Ray Tomlinson, who also invented the use of the “@” symbol in email
addresses.
* The File Transfer Protocol, which is still used
today, allowed ARPANET users to send files to each other.
## 1982: the ARPANET community grows
* As the ARPANET entered its second decade, it was still largely
confined to the United States.
* Academic institutions depended on federal funding to join the network,
so the number of nodes expanded slowly.
* By 1982, the network only had about 100 nodes.
* But that was enough to support a vibrant online community.
* Long before Facebook and Twitter, ARPANET allowed computer scientists
who had access to the network to stay in touch.
* A new bulletin board system called Usenet was
invented in 1980 and caught on quickly.
* Usenet was organized by topic, allowing users to swap programming
tips, recipes, jokes, opinions about science fiction, and much
more.
* Arguing on the internet has an ancient history…
### hosts.txt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29
* Computers need numeric addresses, but which human owns which numeric
address is hard for humans to remember.
* The ARPANET, the predecessor of the Internet, had no
distributed host name database.
* Originally a file named HOSTS.TXT was manually
maintained and made available via file sharing by Stanford Research
Institute for the ARPANET membership, containing the hostnames
and address of hosts as contributed for inclusion by member
organizations
* Each network node maintained its own map of the network
nodes as needed and assigned them names that were memorable to
the users of the system.
* There was no method for ensuring that all references to a given node
in a network were using the same name, nor was there a way to read the
hosts file of another computer to automatically obtain a copy.
* The small size of the ARPANET kept the administrative overhead small
to maintain an accurate hosts file.
* Network nodes typically had one address and could have many
names.
* As local area TCP/IP computer networks gained popularity, however, the
maintenance of hosts files became a larger burden on system
administrators as networks and network nodes were being added to the
system with increasing frequency.
* The Domain Name System (DNS), first described in 1983
and implemented in 1984, automated the publication process and provided
instantaneous and dynamic hostname resolution in the rapidly growing
network.
* In modern operating systems, the hosts file remains an alternative
name resolution mechanism, configurable often as part of facilities such
as the Name Service Switch as either the primary method or as a fallback
method.
1.3 1984 (irony, anyone?): ARPANET
becomes the internet
Originally, the entire ARPANET was managed by the military.
But network operators realized that a centralized network
would eventually become unmanageable if it continued to
grow.
They decided that the network should be reorganized as a
decentralized “network of networks.”
Under this scheme, different networks would be controlled by
different organizations, but all the networks able to
communicate using shared standards, forming a shared
“internet.”
The military asked the computer scientists Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf
to develop new networking standards to make this possible.
The result was a set of standards known as TCP/IP.
These standards specified the basic format of data
packets transmitted across the internet.
On January 1, 1983, the ARPANET switched to using TCP/IP,
marking the birth of the modern internet!
The switch to TCP/IP didn’t make much difference from a user
perspective, since applications like email and Telnet worked about the
same as they had before.
But the new standard paved the way for much faster network growth by
lowering the barrier to entry for new networks.
One of the first new networks to connect to the new internet was
CSNET, which was funded by the National Science Foundation to link
computer science departments across the country.
This map shows the location of ARPANET and CSNET nodes (labeled
“Phonenet”), which after 1983 communicated with each other using
TCP/IP.
By the time the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990, it was just one
of many networks that comprised the internet.
Today (when this was written), the internet is made up of more than
40,000 different networks.
These networks still communicate with each other using the
TCP/IP standards similar to those that Cerf and Kahn developed
in the 1970s.
## NSFNET: The first internet backbone
* During the 1980s, the National Science Network funded several
super-computing centers around the United States.
* And in 1986 the agency created a TCP/IP-based network called NSFNET to
link those super-computing centers together and allow researchers across
the country to use them.
* The primary goal was to allow computer science researchers to log into
the supercomputers and perform academic research.
* But NSF decided not to limit NSFNET to that purpose, allowing the
network to be used for a wide variety of academic
purposes.
* As a result, the NSFNET became the internet’s “backbone,” the
high-speed, long-distance network that allowed different parts
of the internet to communicate.
* Schools that didn’t have a direct connection to the NSFNET worked
together to build regional networks that linked them to each other and
to the nearest NSF node.
* This shows the NSFNET as it existed in 1992.
* By this time, there were 6,000 networks connected to NSFNET, with a
third of them located overseas.
* That meant that students and faculty at a growing number of
universities had access to email,Usenet, and
even a recently-invented application called the World Wide
Web!
* And although the NSFNET was officially restricted to non-commercial
use, for-profit companies were increasingly connecting to the network as
well, setting the stage for the commercialization of the internet that
followed.
## The internet becomes a global network
* In 1993, the internet was still dominated by the United
States, but it was becoming a truly global network.
* https:_en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment causes early
nodes to tend to stick around and creates a
https:_en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law distribution of degree in
nodes
* Above is a map of information flow on Usenet, an bulletin board
application that allowed users to swap recipes, jokes, programming tips,
and more.
## The privatization of the internet backbone
* In 1994, the Clinton Administration further facilitated the
privatized the internet backbone.
* Commercial firms took over the job of carrying long-distance
internet traffic, allowing the government-funded NSFNET to be
decommissioned (how generous…).
* Officials were careful to ensure that no single company controlled too
much of the backbone, helping to create a competitive market for
internet connectivity that still exists today (lol…).
* The above four maps illustrate how the market had evolved by the turn
of the century.
* Four of the largest private long-distance network providers were
UUNet, AT&T, Sprint, and Level 3.
* Each had its own nationwide (and global) network, and they competed
with each other to provide long-distance connectivity to smaller
networks.
* UUNet became part of WorldCom in 1996, and became part of Verizon in
2006.
* Today, Verizon operates one of the world’s largest internet backbones,
in competition with AT&T, Sprint, Level 3 and many other
companies.
## Modern internet backbone
## Map of oceanic fiber
https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
## Devices connected to the internet
Check out all the random devices visible to the open internet (and ready
to be hacked and exploited):
https://www.shodan.io/
## How the world gets online: fixed broadband penetration in 2012
* There are two primary ways people can log onto the internet:
* through a fixed broadband connection at home or in an
office and
* via a wireless connection, often on a cell phone or
tablet.
* This data from the International Telecommunications Union shows
how popular fixed internet access is around the
world.
* It shows internet access is widespread in most parts of the world, but
is still fairly scarce in much of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle
East.
* Fixed internet access allows multiple devices in a customer’s home to
access the internet.
* Fixed connections are also ideal for streaming-video services such as
Netflix because they tend to have greater capacity than wireless
networks.
## How the world gets online: mobile broadband penetration in 2012
* This map shows the percentage of consumers around the world
who have mobile internet access (note that the colors on this
map are not directly comparable to the previous map).
* In the developed world, people usually got fixed internet access first
and obtained mobile internet devices later.
* But some developing countries are skipping the construction of
fixed broadband networks altogether.
* This is cost-effective because a single cell phone tower can provide
service to hundreds of customers.
* For examle, 2.7 percent of Egyptians have fixed broadband service at
home, but 10 times as many Egyptians have internet access using a cell
phone.
* The story is similar in Ghana, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, South Africa,
and Nigeria.
* Mobile internet access can have profound implications for
people in isolated areas.
* Farmers can use mobile phones to learn about recent market
developments, increasing the amount they can get for their crops.
* Some mobile phone operators also offer sophisticated payment
capabilities, allowing people who don’t have access to the conventional
banking system to make electronic payments.
* A few wealthy countries, including Japan, South Korea, and Sweden,
that have more mobile internet subscriptions than people.
* Some customers have two more or smartphones, tablets, or other
connected mobile devices (imagine that).
## World broadband speeds, 2014
* Internet access is a lot faster in some places than others.
* According to Speedtest.net, a website that lets users test their own
internet connections, the fastest internet in the world is in
Hong Kong, with an average of almost 80 million bits per second
(Mbps).
* Other high-speed countries include Japan, South Korea, Sweden,
Romania, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
* The United States clocks in at number 30, with average speeds
of 24 Mbps.
* These figures are worth taking with a grain of salt because they’re
based on a self-selected sample.
* Users must visit the speedtest.net website to test their own broadband
speeds, and it stands to reason that users with fast connections would
be most likely to try it.
* Still, the data permits interesting cross-country comparisons.
## Percentage of people online
## Internet users by world region
## Share of people using the internet by country
## Mobile data connections
## Broadband by country
## Where do you data live?
* If you’ve entrusted your data to Google, Facebook, Yahoo, or
Microsoft, there’s a good chance it’s stored at a location marked by one
of these pins.
* Smaller web companies store their servers in data centers managed by
third parties, but the internet’s largest companies have their own
dedicated data centers with hundreds of thousands of servers in
them.
* These data centers are located around the world,
distributed
* That has two advantages.
* First, locating data centers close to users allows data to be
delivered more quickly.
* Second, it helps provide redundancy: if user data is
kept in multiple locations, it will be safe even in the event of
a catastrophic failure at one data center.
* On this map, Google data centers are red, Microsoft data centers are
yellow, Yahoo data centers are purple, and Facebook data centers are
blue.
* This is not an exhaustive list of these companies’ facilities.
* All of these companies are secretive about their operational details,
and so some of the companies’ data center locations haven’t been
publicly disclosed.
## Internet censorship around the world
* In most Western countries, the internet is a free-speech zone where
ordinary people can express themselves without fear of censorship.
* But that’s not true everywhere.
* This map from Freedom House details which countries respect freedom of
speech and which countries flout it.
* Cuba and several countries in Southeast Asia and the Middle East
engage in pervasive censorship and are marked in purple.
* China, for example, has a “great firewall” that makes it difficult for
its citizens to read about sensitive topics such as the Falun Gong or
the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
*
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnethicalLifeProTips/comments/b3f0d1/ulpt_if_youre_ever_doing_business_with_a_chinese/
*
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi
* Other countries have a partially free internet (for now…).
* In Russia, for example, the government has engaged in more aggressive
internet censorship since Vladimir Putin returned to power in 2012, and
people have been killed by the state based on their internet
presence…
## USA broadband companies
## USA broadband speed and access
https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/
1.4 And then COVID onlined
everything…
Some early predictions:
Side-note: video traffic is the majority of internet traffic.
“Men landed on the moon 50 years ago, a tremendous feat of American
creativity, courage, and, not least, technology.
The tech discoveries made in the space race powered innovation for
decades.
But I wonder, 50 years on, what the tech industry is giving America
today.”
Or to put it another way, “We wanted Mars colonies and all we got was
infinite scrolling!”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Hawley
Is there merit to this sentiment?
What have we built in 2022?
1.6 A brilliantly complex thinking
machine!
What is the most complicated machine ever build by humans?
Is the internet a singular machine, a singular system, a coordinated
system?
The computational power of this single “machine” is (by speculative
estimates) is reaching the computational power of a single human brain,
which in case you are curious, is about 80 billion neurons.
For those who grew up on SciFi books, a living slime-mold of a
planet?
