In “Long Live the Web”, Tim Berners-Lee both talked about the positive principles as well as standards and the threats to the internet. He first introduces the principle of universality which allows the Web to work no matter what hardware, software, network connection or language you use and to handle information of all types and qualities. Before reading it, I take the internet and website for granted like many others. But actually what we so easily and conveniently see as well as use today is benefiting by the designers who follow the principle of universality. There are also open, royalty-free standards that are easy to use create the diverse richness of websites which can stimulate innovation. But on the other hand, internet monopolies and snooping become even more violent. I recalled what I learned in the last term’s digital identity EAP class that some network company like Google will collect and analyze the information you often browse on the internet and then use a special algorithm to rank the topic that they think you would like to see in the searching bar and searching page. Even if you search the same keyword, everyone will see the different type of information on the page, we all live in our own filter bubbles, is it kind of violate the principle of universality? Is it mean the internet actually isolate us rather than connect us? Considering this, I think, we should pay more attention to the threats on the internet, because as the author said in the end “The goal of the Web is to serve humanity”, we should use the web and internet to benefit human more rather than snoop and isolate.
In “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud”, the author briefly talk about the overview of some aspects of international cloud infrastructure. Although I nearly use the cloud every day, I have totally no idea how it functions and what its material carrier is. After reading the article, I was introduced that massive infrastructural developments are following the data centers, with new submarine cables. I suddenly realized why the appealing climates and comfortable temperatures become one of the necessary location conditions for high-tech industrial parks and the data centers in the geography class in senior high school. Moreover, the climate and the latency aren’t the only reasons to expand the data centers. As the Cloud absorbs more and more global data, the concerns about data sovereignty become controversial. To be honest, before reading the article, I would never have imagined that the ownership of the data can cause such a battle for such a long time. But later, I reflect a bit. As we live in a period of big data, all our valuable information like living habits and consumer tastes is stored in the data. So, mastering the data is mastering the business opportunities even the politically dominant. Perhaps that’s why the battle will last and even continue in the future.