ZachM Internet Reflection

Zach M                    9/19/16

The following are examples of reasons to know how the internet works.  Provide a specific "real life" example of each of the bullet points.

• The people who propose the laws, or judge them often don’t really know how the Internet works, what makes sense and what doesn’t. (See: The Internet is a series of tubes).

SOPA was a bill that was an attempted bill in the US senate, that was aimed at banning piracy sites. However, the bill provided enough power and was vague enough to take down any site that had pirated content, including youtube, mediafire, and dropbox.

• Citizens don’t know how to protect themselves from cybercrime, or often live in a cloud of fear and uncertainty not only about the law, but their rights, and about what’s actually technically possible.

There’s a few people who don’t know much about the internet, and don’t know to download a antivirus software and do virus scans. Some people believe macs can’t get viruses, so they don’t scan their computer for them.

• Hackers take advantage of unknowing, unsuspecting people.

Hackers can try to take advantage of unknowing and unsuspecting people through malicious ads, that either install adware, or malware onto their computer.

• Corporations who provide Internet service need to balance profitability with providing access to everyone.

Google (I think) is working on a solar powered balloon that has a satellite dish on it that connects rural areas to the internet

• Countries restrict access to the internet or monitors activity - how is that technically possible? What is it they are actually doing?

The NSA monitors a large amount of internet activity by wiretapping and tapping CDNs (content delivery networks) to gain access to large amounts of data going through the internet.