Week 1: Response to “Long Live the Web” and “The Room Where the Internet Was Born” – Oona Pecson

In “Long Live the Web”, the advancement of both the web and internet is discussed, but the fact that the web and the internet are both separate from each other is what is mainly emphasized. Berners-Lee compares the internet to an electronic network, and the web can be compared to household appliances that feed off of the electricity brought to them via the electronic network. This analogy is important because, while the internet exists in the background, the web can continuously be changed and altered. As we progress into the modern era, there is constantly new web pages, sites, or other phenomenons being created. In fact, it is miraculous to look back and see how far we have come. However, with the positives of advancement comes realities that some may not want to face. This stems from how much is on the web, and how some items are not full deleted forever as users may think, or that there are people out there with potential access to hundreds of thousands of pools of personal data and a mind that could think of equally as many ways to use that data. This article brought up this reality of web security, and the connection to human rights (personal information being stolen, and the worries of snooping in general, etc). It was interesting to read through, because most people look at the internet and the web with excitement, without actually knowing what any of it means, or what the reality is. As we progress with development of internet and the web, we also need to progress with the protection of human rights on this platform, as well as educating people about it as much as possible. 

When reading “The Room Where the Internet Was Born”, it was just so interesting to picture a single room where the first breakthrough message was sent out via ARPANET. What is even more interesting is that this happened exactly 50 years ago this year in 1969! I think that a lot of young people today, including myself, don’t fully understand how young the phenomenon of the internet really is. For most of us grew up knowing about the internet, mobile devices, and a general idea of how to use those things. In reality, it was just when we were growing up, that development began to pick up speed. I remember when iPhones started coming out, and when wireless options were becoming more and more popular. But, reading this article and realizing that the breakthrough of all of this came from a single message being sent, gave me a bit of a shock. It is so cool to think that, from that one message (and who knows what that message was) we are able to use the internet to complete every day tasks from school to work, and even at home. it almost reminds me of the rapid urbanization of cities such as Shanghai, that massively grew and changed over a course of only 20 years from the 80s to the 2000s. Just as Shanghai changed into the global city it is today, the internet also grew in a similar fashion on its own. It is so cool to read this article, and look back to see just how far we have come.

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