Our Internet is just a wire away
How Did the Internet Begin?
Our Internet actually started with ARPANet, and the main inventors of ARPANet were these three: Tim Berners-Lee, Vinton Cerf, and Robert Kahn.
The earliest formal network connection with data exchange that I can find was in 1965, when the TX-2 computer at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory was directly connected to the Q-32 computer at System Development Corporation in Santa Monica, California, via a 1200bps telephone line (without using packet switching). Subsequently, ARPA added computers from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to form an experimental network. This should be the earliest network.
However, at that time, these "networks" were probably not considered formal networks — they might have been seen as mere "data exchange clusters" connected by telephone lines. The network at that time was indeed determined by a single "line".
The first ARPANET plan was in April 1967. At the ARPA IPTO PI meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Larry Roberts organized discussions on the design of ARPANET. At this point, it can be said that the development of the network officially began.
Still the Lines
To this day, the role of network cables has not changed.
By my estimation, there are currently about 700 billion kilometers of network cables in the world. This distance could circle the Earth's equator 175,000,000 times. This is no small number.
It is evident how significant the role of network cables has been!
The Foundation
With so many network cables, how much data is there on them?
Research institution IDC recently released the latest report, predicting the global data sphere for the next five years, measuring the amount of data created, captured, replicated, and consumed annually, including consumers/enterprises, regions, data types, locations (core, edge, endpoint), and cloud/non-cloud. IDC predicts that globally, 159.2 ZB (Zettabyte, ten trillion gigabytes) of data will be generated in 2024, and it will more than double by 2028, reaching 384.6 ZB, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.4%. The institution believes that for a long time, the influence of artificial intelligence has been evident in various fields and technologies, including intelligent surveillance, smart assistants, and AI-supported business tools and industrial automation, etc., which together have driven the steady growth in the amount of data generated and stored.
Wow!
Ah, let's expand on that:
1,592,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
159.2 Zbytes
OH, Interesting.
All of this data is built on these countless network cables.
So, what if some of these network cables disappeared?
The Importance of the Physical Layer
This is our Internet.
From 1965, when sending an 'h' was a painstaking task, to now, when we can effortlessly send this article to your computer～
But, with the speed, what has the Internet gained?
The Cost of Speed
Spam email accounts for about 45% of the total global email volume.
I was shocked at first sight.
What is this stuff.
Out of these 159.2 ZB, who knows how much is this garbage.
But!
Behind this garbage, there is just a bunch of network cables.
So
Our network has always been just a bunch of network cables, whether it's good or bad information, in the end, it's just some electrical signals.
So, posting bad information is meaningless.
Waste information will only be thrown into the garbage dump by a complete waste disposal system. In a few hundred years, it will definitely no longer exist.
But a good system will always be remembered, no matter how much or how little. I believe ARPANet will be widely sung for at least the next 300 years.
So, I just want to say, if you want, always make our Internet a better place. Making your signal in the wires better is also making our Internet better.
Our Internet is just wires.