Linked: How everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science, and everyday life

June-10-2017

Chapter 11: The Awaking Internet

Chapter 11-1 The narrow definition of Internet 

The narrow definition of Internet referring only to the physical infrastructure connecting computers:

The internet is a network of routers that communicate with each other through protocols envisioned by Paul Baran and made possible thanks to ARPA's (Adavanced Research Projects Agency) deep pockets. 

A comparison between the Internet and human brain:

A network's complexity is matched perhaps only by the human brain. There is an important difference between the two, however. Whereas the human brain's size has been stagnating for centuries, the Internet continues to grow exponentially, without the sign of slowing down. 

Chapter 11-2  Mapping the internet

Why need we map the internet?

There are important pratical reasons for seeking a globla internet map.

Without knowing the Internet's topology it is impossible to design better tools and services. 

 It is extremely hard to map the Internet, why is it a difficult task?

The underlying network has become so distributed, decentralized, and locally guarded that even such an ordinary task as getting a central map of it has become virtually impossible. 

The internet follows the classical scenario of a growing network. It continues to expand node by node after two decades--this is the first and necessary condition for the emergence of a scale-free topology. Preferential attachment, the second condition, is more subtle. The cost of communication is the dominant limiting factor determining the growth of the internet. The distance is another one. 

Other good sentences:

1. Understanding the topology of the Internet is a prerequisite for designing tools and services that offer a fast and reliable communication infrastructure.

2. Reseach in... identified our limited knowledge of the network topology as the main obstacle toward a better understanding of the Internet as a whole. 

3. The increasing undestood interplay between the netowork architecture and the protocols presents a diffeerent picture, however, a few well-trained crakers could destory the net in 30 min from anywhere in the world.