If you think about it, the Internet is literally like a net. A net made of millions of smartphones, computers, servers and many other devices. If you snip 10-15 threads of this net, it doesn't matter much. Because you can find many other ways of building connections. You can cut off one area of the net like when countries block or stop the internet in some region of the country. But if we talk about large scale, at the global level, to crash or switch off all the internet across the world, together, is theoretically possible, but it is practically impossible. But how close can you get to achieving this practically impossible event? We got to see a real-life example of it some days ago, when Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, three major social media apps were down. They stopped working for 5-6 hours. "Hundreds of millions of people around the world, using some of the most popular social media sites Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have been forced offline in a major global blackout." "A very big issue. In a day when there are a lot of other negative headlines, about the company guys." "So this is what happens when you have such a concentration of the three of the most widely used apps and communication services globally concentrates within one owner." I know what you're thinking of. "This isn't the internet, the internet is much more vast than these 3 apps." But don't forget friends that for millions of people across the world, this is the internet. When you use the internet, majority of the time is spent on sending text messages on WhatsApp. Or on browsing Facebook and Instagram. Or on watching videos on YouTube. If we talk about several developing countries, there are many African countries using the Free Basics of Facebook. Meaning that they have the Free Basics app on their smartphones, through which they can visit Facebook without any data charges and a handful of other websites pre-decided by Facebook. They can visit only that and they can't use any other apps. They cannot access the rest of the internet. If you remember, around 2016, there was a major controversy in India about it because Facebook was planning to launch Free Basics in India. But thankfully the people had protested against it and Free Basics had to cancel their operations in India. But the many people that are using Free Basics today, for them, Facebook down means that the entire internet is down. When Facebook, WhatsApp went down, we had quite a lot of fun with it. Made some memes showing that people could finally spend some time offline and people wouldn't have to see useless WhatsApp forwards. But if we talk about it realistically, there are many small businesses, that are dependent on Facebook to run their business. There are many small hotels that use only Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp to communicate with their customers.
There are many people that log in to other apps using Facebook login. So if you use your Facebook login for Zoom, then you wouldn't be able to have your business meeting when Facebook was down. That's why many people could not access the other apps, could not access their smart TVs, if they had used Facebook login. Overall, what I'm trying to say is that when Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were down, we imagined it to be a light-hearted thing, but it had some devastating consequences. For many people in the world. Because the Internet has become quite centralised nowadays. There was a time when WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, used to be three distinct companies. But Facebook acquired the other two companies, and now all of them are under the control of Facebook. And it is so centralised, that when Facebook crashes, WhatsApp and Instagram crash too. Imagine if Google's servers had crashed, then Gmail and YouTube would not work. Today, the internet is so centralised that it seems like 2-3 companies are handling the entire internet. But when the internet was invented, friends, its original purpose was exactly the opposite. Come, let's look at its history. It was during the Cold War, the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union was underway, the American scientists and military experts were afraid that in case the Soviet Union attacks America, even with one missile, their entire communication system could be destroyed. Because their communication system at the time, was very centralised. Like the landline phones used to be. They thought that if they wanted to make their system more secure, they would need to make it decentralised. It shouldn't happen that they rely on a single computer through which all the communication would be routed. Or that they depended on a single communication wire or line. It should be so decentralised that even if any part of the system failed, the rest of the parts could continue to function. In 1962, there was an MIT scientist named J.C.R. Licklider, and there was an agency of the Defense Department of the USA, called ARPA, Advanced Research Projects Agency. He worked in it. He proposed the solution of creating a galactic network between all the computers. A network through which the Government and the Government leaders, could communicate with each other, even if the Soviet Union destroyed the telephone system of their country. In 1969, based on this idea, a computer network was developed. It was named the ARPA Net. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. It linked the computers then. "1968 was the year when Larry Roberts sought out the engineers to build the Advanced Research Projects Agency's Computer Network. The ARPA Net. The acorn that would grow to become the mighty internet." At the time, computers were present in the Universities, Government agencies, and with Defense Contractors. And the computers of the time used to be huge. They were called the Mainframes. And it would take up the entire basement to store them. The ARPA Net had indeed linked the computers to the others but there was a problem. Every computer of that time had its own language. They had different software in them and incompatibility among the computers was evident. If one computer used some other system, it basically meant that you writing a letter in Hindi, and sending it to France expecting a French speaker to understand your letter in Hindi. The solution to this was Inter-Networking. Having various networks communicate with each other.
Two ARPA researchers, Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, they developed the way to enable all the computers to communicate with each other. Enabling them to understand the various languages of the others. This invention is known as the Transmission Control Protocol or the TCP. Later they added an additional protocol to it, the Internet Protocol. Today, we refer to it as the TCP/IP. This is often known as the handshake. Because various types of computers were shaking one another's hands. And understanding each other's languages. On January 1st, 1983, ARPA Net adopted this TCP/IP protocol. But friends, up till this point in time, internet was available only to the universities, scientists and the government. It was used to share information among them. The common people had not tasted the Internet yet. The internet could reach the common people only when World Wide Web or www was invented. Many people actually confuse the internet and the world wide web, friends. But in reality, they are two very different things. World Wide Web is basically the most common way to access the data available on the internet. When you open your browser, and go to a website through 'www.' you are using the web here. Using the World Wide Web. But if you open the Netflix app on your smart TV to watch some Netflix, then you are not accessing the World Wide Web. Through the Netflix app, you are accessing the data present on the internet. Let me explain this with an example. Imagine a map. You can see various cities and towns on it. And those cities are connected through roads. The internet is basically like those roads, the connection lines laid between the cities and towns. The World Wide Web is actually all the things that you can see on the roads. Like the houses and shops. And the vehicles running on the road, is the data that is moving around on the internet. Some vehicles navigate the roads through the World Wide Web, as in with the help of the houses present alongside the road, but every vehicle does not need to pass through it. If you are on Facebook, Twitter, Skype the whole day talking to people with your smartphones, play online games on Xbox or watch a show on Netflix, then though you were on the internet the whole day, you weren't on the web. Because you would be on the web only when you put in the URL on your browser and go to that website specifically. This World Wide Web was invented by a British scientist, Tim Berners-Lee working at the CERN. He did this in 1990. And in 1991, he made his software openly available to the public free of cost. "Berners-Lee developed the software to more easily follow the threads of knowledge within the information stored throughout the internet. Crisscrossing these myriad threads across the globe reminded him of a web. So he named his invention the World Wide Web." His basic purpose for inventing this was so that any person in the world could share any information with any other person at any time. And the special thing about his invention was that a person needed only a computer and access to the internet to benefit from his invention. Not only could the data present on the internet be accessed, but through his invention, many more things could be built. People could build their own websites. He did outstanding selfless work to do something good for the world. But today, Tim Berners-Lee believes that and there's a quote from him, I'll read it to you, He believes that today, the web has failed in many aspects. While saying the quoted words, he was basically referring the Cambridge Analytica scam. Tim says that he had developed the web so that every person could freely use the internet. But today, some companies have established their monopolies over the internet. Like Facebook and Google. And robust centralisation is seen. In the 1990s era, everyone used the web through emails then. The communication used to be done via emails. And people's information and their data, were directed through the servers of these email companies. Like the Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. After that came Web 2.0 that we know as the social media web. Today, most of the information is routed through the servers of these giant companies. And as I told you at the beginning of the video, some companies like Facebook have reached such an extent that they have started getting into partnerships with the telephone provider companies for giving their apps for free to the people and if they want to access the rest of the internet, they would need to pay separate data charges for it. That's why for some people, the meaning of the internet is limited to only Facebook. To counter such situations, many people, including Tim, talk about Web 3.0 What should the future of the internet be? They want a decentralised future for the internet. An internet that does not rely on one company. An internet that is not monopolised by a handful of companies. An internet that does not crash and affect people's lives, if the servers of one company crash. Many people have come up with their ideas for this new decentralised internet. Like a young coder from Germany made a decentralised version of the Twitter app. Called the Mastodon. Technologies like Blockchain try to bring about this decentralisation. In our financial system. Tim Berners-Lee is also working on his own platform to build the Web 3.0 of his dreams. His platform is named Solid. He says that Solid is a platform that gives individuals the authority to control their data. Instead of handing over their data to giant companies. In his opinion, Solid would basically provide the infrastructure of how you could keep your data to yourself. If a social network is built using Solid. If any social network is built upon Solid, then your data will be stored in a personal pod, instead of storing your data on the company's servers. So these are some new upcoming ways friends with the help of which the internet and the web is sought to be decentralised. This will be the Web 3.0 with decentralised apps and decentralised web. Only time can tell how successful it can be. And if you found this topic to be confusing, try to read more about it. I hope you found this video to be informative. And if you liked this video, then I'd recommend another video an older video that I made on the topic of Internet you'd like it too because it is on a similar topic. About who controls the internet. And how the internet runs.
Thank you very much!
Fabulous
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