B R Y A N

In computing,

Galloway used the conventional road etiquette as an example of how computer protocols work, saying that protocol is a technique for achieving voluntary regulations within a contingent environment. Although the Internet is commonly perceived by critics as chaotic and lacks centralized command, there is actually more protocological control than it may seem. What makes it look like the way it is now is probably TCP/IP, which are the leading protocols for data transmission from one computer to another. I think that torrents are actually a really good example that contributes to the misconception of the Internet today. Probably because it is file transfer system that is very unpopular with copyright authorities, based solely on peer-to-peer network relationships.

Since DNS servers are structured like an inverted tree, a hypothesis was put forth saying that whole countries can be blacked out from the rest of the Internet by just modifying the information contained in the root servers. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is a type of attack that floods a website with relentless and useless traffic, causing it to stall or go offline. The incoming traffic originates from potentially hundreds or thousands of sources, making it nearly impossible to stop the attack by simply blocking a few IP address, or even to track down the attacker. Here is an article about the largest DDoS attack that China has ever faced. This further reinforces my stand – that the Internet is a large controllable mesh of networks.

Read Dana’s post on how the protocols undertaken by the Chinese government to restrict the use of Facebook, Twitter, and a number of  other social networking sites.

Today we discussed the notions of technology, technique, and culture.

Technology

By the 1860s, the interpretation of technology shifted from art and craft to the application of a body of knowledge to a specific field, or more easily put, the application of science to production. Over the past few decades, the word ‘technology’ describes overall system of machines and processes.

We are now said to be living in, or around, technology. ‘Technology’ is now an abstract term that suggests an overarching system that we inhibit. I personally agree, fundamentally because the basis of this speculation has stood firm since ancient Greece. The average modern day individual has in some way, owns or uses a form of ‘technology’ daily to keep themselves connected to the world.

Techniques

Technique, simply put, is the ability to accomplish something with the use of skill. Losing our technique would imply the sense that we could not accomplish anything.  But as Potts suggests,

Would this mean that the human workforce will eventually become obsolete?

Simon mentioned that technology is always created by humans, and humans have absolute control over it. Jake says that we, as humans, are also created and ‘programmed’ by education but still have independent control over ourselves and he could see that being inherent in technology. Mardy talks about the notion of nature and technology, where technology has somehow coexisted with nature. For example, back then a stick and a rock could even be considered as technology.

Culture

This brings us to culture. Culture is dynamic because it changes over time. Culture is unpredictable – technology is being used in ways never foreseen by their inventors. So, it is safe to say that culture evolves with technology.

From what I understand from the Barabasi reading, the sentence ‘rich get richer’ points to how a senior node is collectively gathering more links as time passes, compared to a new node that just joined the system, with only a few links. In his terms, real networks are governed by two laws, growth and preferential attachment. In 1999, 3.2 billion dollars were spent by small scale companies on online advertising alone. The reason? Trying to attract more links and hits to their website in lieu of the SuperBowl. As stated in my previous post, distribution of links per site follows a pareto style distribution.

Is it, really? An example here is when I search for ‘bpl (Barclays Premier League) updates’ in a search engine, my obvious choice would be ESPNfc.com because I am familiar with the channel. They more they are linked, the easier they are to find on the Web.

It is obvious people prefer hubs. It is true that it is an unnoticed bias. This is what Barabasi calls preferential attachment. He also goes against the Erdos-Renyi and Watts-Strogatz models where there is no difference between the nodes of a network, saying that “In real networks linking is never random”.

So how does a node become a hub? Growth, seniority, and preferential attachment. Early nodes have more potential to gain links compared to the latecomers. Therefore, when they gain a lot of links they will eventually break off from the pack and form a hub. Using this simple observation, Barabasi was able to conclude in terms network topology, that the Web is indeed following a power law.

Also check out Tim’s post.