Happy 25th Birthday Interwebs!

[user31]

To celebrate its 25th birthday, Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web — formerly known as the World Wide Web — called for a global online bill of rights to keep the Internet free and open.

Berner-Lee warned that recent threats to net neutrality in the United States and abroad has undermined the open nature of the Internet he created. Without rules to protect the Web’s independence and ensure that anyone can use it however they want. With his Magna Carta online bill of rights, however, users would be free from surveillance and discriminating policies.

“Unless we have an open, neutral Internet we can rely on without worrying about what’s happening at the back door, we can’t have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture,” Berners-Lee told The Guardian.

Net neutrality, the idea that all Web content should be treated equally regardless of who creates it, has been around almost as long as the Web itself. It first appeared in 1996 with the Telecommunications Act, in which Congress set out to ensure the Internet’s openness, just as it was emerging as a medium for doing business and sharing ideas. Their goal was to leave the Internet largely untouched by heavy regulations. Promoting such openness is why the Web succeeded in the first place.

Read more at...

On The Internet's 25th Birthday, The Creator Of The Web Pushes For An Online Bill Of Rights | ThinkProgress

 

[Wrend]

It's probably just the lack of sleep I've had, the sleep that I haven't had, the...

Anyway, I was just thinking about the "interweb" (that word specifically - hmm, but then, maybe it was "interwebs" - tough to say for sure), emoticons (newer and older [relatively speaking - that is, from my experience] in comparison - QQ being newer, or at least more commonly used more recently, for example), and such. So, it looks like a bit of good fortune that I happened upon this thread.

I will enjoy reading up on this. Thanks for sharing.

So, "net neutrality." In a way this does kind of remind me of freedom of the press, free speech, equal rights, and so on. All overall good things, in my opinion. But on the other hand, it's someone's server(s), communication infrastructure, and data. So, while the public uses the internet (but then again, I guess you could say private individuals just as easily, if not even more so), it isn't really (correct me if I'm wrong) a public network/digital forum (as it were) for digital communication and data sharing. It's almost like a virtual public network. So while I think "net neutrality" is largely a just endeavor, it seems... well, unfortunately unrealistic to a degree to me.

Are the stewards (regulating body/bodies, what have you) of the internet public officials who can be held accountable?

Well, there was that judge, or so I've heard, that ruled against Verizon(?) and maybe another/other telecommunication entity/entities, basically saying that they couldn't single out and "throttle" down internet media host's/provider's (Netflix, YouTube, and/or similar) "bandwidth" and charge the media entities to have more or normal "bandwidth." So, maybe the internet is recognized as being public in some fashion, or maybe it just has laws that apply to how it's used per government.

If I want to connect to the internet, I have to pay the toll to those that pay the toll to those that own the infrastructure(s). Ideally (assuming non-political propaganda stereotypes about the justifiable roles of governments), I think this infrastructure should be public instead of private, and free to use (within certain reasonable limitations), like sidewalks. Though I realize that that isn't necessarily practical nor realistic overall. Maybe this public internet could have a free standardized type of connection per address, provided there was service in the area, and the government could charge for higher data transfer rates to offset the costs either somewhat, or perhaps entirely.

 

[King Arthur]

the Web — formerly known as the World Wide Web

Formally known as the World Wide Web, thank you. That "WWW" we still see in URLs? Yeah, it stands for the World Wide Web.

(This post is directed at the author of that linked article and those who possibly share the same ignorance, not the OP.)

 

[Britton30]

I recall a winter Olympics, I forget what year, but a skier or skater was Katarina Witt. The announcer on the TC broadcast continually referred to c|net's using the World Wide Web to stream the events. Never was the word "internet" used. It was a really big deal to them.

 

[user31]

the Web — formerly known as the World Wide Web

Formally known as the World Wide Web, thank you. That "WWW" we still see in URLs? Yeah, it stands for the World Wide Web.

(This post is directed at the author of that linked article and those who possibly share the same ignorance, not the OP.)

I know... I think there's still those people who call it the WWW. My friends, including myself, call it the internet. WWW refers to that bigger audience, if I'm understanding correctly.

 

[King Arthur]

Calling the protocol that delivers us webpages the World Wide Web is actually one of the the correct ways to call it (some would perhaps prefer to reference HTTP instead), I was calling out the false notion that the World Wide Web is formally known as the "Web" since the term "Web" is shorthand for the official name "World Wide Web".

The "Internet" itself encompasses a myriad of different communication protocols that run on top of TCP/IP that fundamentally drives the internet. Some of those protocols would include (but are not limited to): HTTP(S) (aka World Wide Web/WWW, or "internet" to the layman), FTP, email (IMAP/POP3/SMTP), IRC, Gopher, BitTorrent, XMPP, etc.

Some of those protocols, for example IRC, POP3, SMTP, and Gopher, even predate WWW which oftentimes comes as a surprise to less-informed folks and/or the younger generation that only know of the "internet" as the "World Wide Web".

 

[user31]

I just feel this should be posted to clarify in this thread.

The Internet, referring to the specific global system of interconnected IP networks, is a proper noun and written with an initial capital letter. In the media and common use it is often not capitalized, viz. the internet. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, but not capitalized when used as a verb or an adjective.[4] The Internet is also often referred to as the Net.
Historically the word internet was used, uncapitalized, as early as 1883 as a verb and adjective to refer to interconnected motions. Starting in the early 1970s the term internet was used as a shorthand form of the technical term internetwork, the result of interconnecting computer networks with special gateways or routers. It was also used as a verb meaning to connect together, especially for networks.[5][6]
The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech; it is common to speak of "going on the Internet" when invoking a web browser to view web pages. However, the Internet is a particular global computer network connecting millions of computing devices; the World Wide Web is just one of many services running on the Internet. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents (web pages) and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.[7] In addition to the Web, a multitude of other services are implemented over the Internet, including e-mail, file transfer, remote computer control, newsgroups, and online games. All of these services can be implemented on any intranet, accessible to network users.
The term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user.

Read more at...

Internet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Britton30]

This may help too.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hyertext Transfer Protocol is the language the web understands, also HTML, Hypertext Markup Language.

 

[King Arthur]

What's sad about all this is that the Internet and its associated myriad of communication protocols have a rich and deep history, yet the average person won't even realize they are there because browsers nowadays are starting to de-emphasize or even hide the URI scheme in the address bar.