- Very much recommended: the new book “How the Internet REALLY Works” by Article 19 and ‘Catnip’ = a group of clever young Digerati.
How the Internet Really Works: An Illustrated Guide to Protocols, Privacy, Censorship, and Governance Hardcover – Illustrated, December 11, 2020
It can be used by senior decisionmakers who want to be better informed what Internet is and does. And it is very useful for schoolchildren who want to know what it is so they may be interested to get jobs in this exiting new line of work. Well it gives the basics but they should be challenged and prepared to learn fast in the field of network building and expanding :-)). Never a dull moment!
That is what my students in Delft and Arnhem experienced, but it saves a lot of time if you can understand things with the Knowledge from this book as a basis.
2. Only commend I have is that in the book a proper definition of Internet is missing. Most people who are in discussions about regulations of Internet for instance have different and only vague notions about what they are talking about. And often they mean the WWW or ICT systems / database instead of The Internet.
The following Definition was given to me by people who defined and started to build internets: For further information about this definition, see https://theconnectivist.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/what-is-internet/
” An internet is a voluntary agreement among network operators to exchange traffic for their mutual benefit. (The Internet is a prototype internet.) That’s all — it’s an agreement.
It’s not a network, or a Thing of any kind. Part of the agreement is to exchange routing information. In order to reduce conflict, IANA assigns address blocks. Networks, however, advertise what address blocks they carry, and this is not normally checked against IANA. So IANA address block lists are there to advise in case of conflict. If however people stopped trusting them, they might look elsewhere, or (heaven forbid people give up Authority and think for themselves) make their own decisions on whom to trust”.
It is urgent that more people know how the Internet and corporate networks are constructed, since it is basic knowledge to survive in this world where our kids are glued to screens nearly all day long and during the lockdown their parents and grandparents need Internet to order and sell things and communicate and cooperate all day long.
jaap van till, TheConnectivist
The Connectivist 