The messages that Tim Berners-Lee conveys through “Long Live The Web” could not have been more timely. In any age where almost every service is available online, it is crucial to think about the way in which policies, standards and frameworks govern how we use the Internet.
A lot of the modern problems regarding the Internet seem to stem from big corporations and other bureaucratic entities. Some of these problems are
- Censorship – Not giving everyone with access to the internet the same information.
- Net Neutrality – Favoring the services of certain entities over the others.
This sort of behaviour makes it seem like the Internet belongs to some organisation, rather than a free resource that belongs to everyone. However, unlike other free resources, everyone with access to it has complete privileges to determine how it is used and what it provides. It is collective effort that made the Internet what it is today – if not for the work of students, scientists and others in the early days of the Internet, we would not have the information super highway that we have today. And, it is this sort of collaborative effort that needs to be revived and fostered as we move on into the future. The future of the Internet lies in open-souce collaboration, not closed-source, proprietary standards. Closed source standards create a hostile, competitive environment where companies are solely focused on outcompeting each other while not prioritizing user experiences and satisfaction.
While, this article had many resounding points, the following quote seemed to be quite questionable.
“Once you enter your data into one of these services, you cannot easily use them on another site.”
Privacy is one of the biggest concerns in the digital realm today, and the statement above seems to directly contradict the fundamental principles of digital privacy. If a user has provided their data to a service, it is expected that this service would not divulge this data to a third party, or use it for purposes other than what it is was collected for. If this sort of information-sharing was allowed, then there would be no control over who gains access to an individual’s data, and who would be accountable for the handling of such data. This is where the question of “Digital Human Rights” comes into play. It is high time that law-makers and technologists come together to create a framework upon which fundamental digital rights are agreed upon and put down in black-and-white. The ever-increasing presence of technology in the most intimate aspects of our lives warrants the need for such a framework. One such effort was the Online Magna Carta – an initiative by Tim Berners-Lee himself.
Once the Internet goes back to being the largest crowd-sourced, community-driven venture, would we be able to say that we have a free and open Internet for all.
“The Room Where The Internet Was Born” could be described as a historical account of the evolution of communication technologies, starting at the principles of “time-sharing” and going all the way to modern-day cloud-computing. The fundamental message behind this article could be that it is essential to understand the underlying inspirations that drive modern technologies and to understand and appreciate the roots of what we have today. As described, the ARPANET is simply an extension of the time-sharing concepts introduced by John McCarthy, and the Internet was built upon the ARPANET itself. After reading this article, I began to appreciate the current technologies that we have today much more, and it is essential that the humble origins of what we have today is recorded for the generations to come.