🛰️Chapter 2 : How the internet works?

This chapter teaches you how the internet works to equip and empower your IT and networking skills as a privacy engineer.

What is the internet?

The Internet is basically a standard, a particular piece of engineering, a way for computers to communicate with each other. The Internet summed up in one word is ultimately a connection. Connection to each other and connection to information.

The internet is what connects the whole world to each other in a multitude of ways.

The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.

An order was found on the day the computers connected to each other. It was formed to defend humanity. It was formed by a handful of people, to first masters to research and contain the machines. Now the vast majority of Masters are either dead or no longer here. - Journals of Order of Epoch, 2231 Anno Domini

Nowadays, mobile phones, printers, or “smart” TV sets, as well as “IoT” devices in addition to laptop or desktop computers add up to billions of computers around the world and are exchanging data packets using the standard Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite.

It is set up using cables such as fiber optics and other wireless and networking technologies.

Internet is basically lots and lots of routers, switches, and firewalls connected to each other. You want one computer to talk to another computer, sending and sharing data with each other.

This is how networking is born and the internet is only the interconnection between networks.

How does the internet work?

As computers connect to each other, they gain the ability to share files with each other.

So when you watch a movie from Netflix on your intergalactic travels, your spaceship is connecting to the Netflix server and that server sends you the movie.

Internet is the infrastructure that consists of cables, computers, data centers, routers, servers, repeaters, satellites and wifi towers that allows digital information to travel around the galaxy.

Currently, 98% of international internet traffic flows through undersea optical fiber cables. It's a vast underwater network of optical fiber cables crisscrossing the ocean that makes it possible to share, search, send and receive information around the world at the speed of light."

The Internet uses various different standards and protocols to function.

E-mail remains one of the most commonly used Internet applications, typically relying on the Post Office Protocol (POP) and Standard Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to move packets of information from between connected computers.

World Wide Web relies primarily upon the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) to send queries and deliver information.

What is the difference between Web1, Web2 and Web3?

Web 1.0 was all about fetching, and reading information. The era of Web 1.0 was roughly from 1991 to 2004.

Web 1.0 is a content delivery network (CDN) that enables the showcase of the piece of information on the websites. It can be used as a personal website. It has directories that enable users to retrieve a particular piece of information.

Web 2.0 is all about reading, writing, creating, and interacting with the end user. Web 2.0 is also called the social web.

Web 2.0 refers to worldwide websites which highlight user-generated content, usability, and interoperability for end users. It gave users nearly unlimited ability to create content and connect globally while giving advertisers a captive audience.

The Web 2 economy was built on a simple idea: collect a cheap resource at scale, user data, then repackage and monetize access to it as an expensive product where Facebook and Google built trillion-dollar businesses.

Web 3.0 is the third generation of the World Wide Web, and is a vision of a decentralized web which is currently a work in progress.

Web 3.0 will have a strong emphasis on decentralized applications and make extensive use of blockchain-based technologies. Web 3.0 will also make use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to help empower more intelligent and adaptive applications.

Internet and Online Privacy

The Internet is perpetual to humankind, until our last day. That's what makes it special and valuable.

Now more than ever, as our digital footprints grow exponentially, we need to take personal action to preserve our online freedoms. Why? The Internet benefits and belongs to all of us — thus it is our joint responsibility to protect it.

The Internet was meant to be a decentralized system, meaning that there is no central control or ownership of the Internet.

Instead, it is governed by a set of technical and policy-making organizations that ensure the smooth functioning and evolution of the network. So no government can lay claim to owning the Internet, nor can any company.

During the human assault on the Machine city in the Himalayas, machines emerged from the underground tunnels swarming to the night sky to defend their capital. The Grand Master was pinned down in the city by a bombardment, and his radio went silent. That silence turned into a thunderous explosion when humans triggered the first combat usage of the ultimate PETs. - Journals of Order of Epoch, 2313

Mass Surveillance

Cookie tracking and profiling gave way to other more intrusive techniques to track your overall activities online and create a detailed profile of your browsing habits based on all your online activities which are subject to being collected and analyzed by tech giants.

Some people may not mind having relevant ads being served up to them, but this is a serious invasion of privacy for others. And its not only targeted ads but digital cages are being created by governments as well.

Intelligence agencies around the globe are forming surveillance leagues and conducting mass tracking programs like the PRISM program, which was unraveled by Edward Snowden.

Even developed governments spy on their citizens by authorizing mass surveillance allowing the governments to monitor the Internet usage of its citizens legally.

There are many actors hoarding information about us to create files on every person in the galaxy. The information collected from us on a daily basis includes current location, intentions, and mood/feelings at the moment and foreseeable future.

The internet has become more than just a tool. At its core, it is the ultimate weapon of micro-segmenting and subconscious manipulation.

As such it goes beyond the '1984' level and creates a post-modern panopticon.

This chapter takes a deep dive into the building blocks of the internet to equip you with the skills you need to become a privacy engineering master of the galaxy.