The Tangled Web We Weave

The Tangled Web We Weave Inside the Shadow System That Shapes the Internet

James Ball2020
We all see what the internet does and increasingly don't like it, but do we know how and more importantly who makes it work that way? That's where the real power lays... The internet was supposed to be a thing of revolutions. As that dream curdles, there is no shortage of villains to blame--from tech giants to Russian bot farms. But what if the problem is not an issue of bad actors ruining a good thing? What if the hazards of the internet are built into the system itself? That's what journalist James Ball argues as he takes us to the root of the problem, from the very establishment of the internet's earliest protocols to the cables that wire it together. He shows us how the seemingly abstract and pervasive phenomenon is built on a very real set of materials and rules that are owned, financed, designed and regulated by very real people. In this urgent and necessary book, Ball reveals that the internet is not a neutral force but a massive infrastructure that reflects the society that created it. And making it work for--and not against--us must be an endeavor of the people as well.
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Photo of Timeo Williams
Timeo Williams@timeowilliams
4 stars
Jun 5, 2024

** spoiler alert ** The book is divided into 3 parts: 1. History/Structure of the internet 2. The $$ men - driving force behind every household name in the tech world is venture capital & programmatic advertising. 3. The internet battlefield - regulators, culture wars, cyberwarfare. Some notable exercpts: The internet as we know it had its origins in ARPA. The project started with two computers located at two different university campuses sending data between each other. Ball mentions that the early design of the internet came from relatively young postgraduates - in a "request for committee" sort of fashion. This request for comments style of adding or modifying the protocols set forth still exist today and follow the same structure: https://www.rfc-editor.org/ The most obvious thing this means for most of us is that when something goes wrong, it might not actually be your internet provider's fault: any connection to any website is likely to travel across multiple different networks and computers, owned and managed by totally different people or corporations. ^ to test this, check out these links: https://tools.keycdn.com/traceroute. https://www.hellotech.com/guide/for/h... I was surprised to see the different servers that my request went through to get the data. Programmatic Advertising: Let's say you go to a random website, like facebook.com. Before you scroll and take a look at that ad that looks quite interesting & tailored to you - do you know there's a process behind how that was even selected? As you click on a site, the browser will render the content you want to see - but also sends a request for ads to a supply side platform which it instructs to get in touch with you directly. That SSP then asks your browser for all the information it can get from your cookies, IP address and more. The SSP will connect your data with a Data Management Platform(DSP), which collects data on the type of user it would like, and matches you with ads that they have in stock and choose the one based of the winning bid. Cyber Warriors The private sector can voluntarily be given extensive access to the networks of their clients The FBI and other public agencies are restricted by what they can obtain through warrants and legal authorities. 'The US laws are set up to make it difficult for the law enforcement to do their job because you want to protect people's rights, which is s good thing in my opinion' - Steve Meckl