I think this ranking is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Peak Tflops isn’t necessarily what matters anymore in terms of solving problems. I propose that the internet itself is the fastest and most powerful computer in terms of it’s ability to solve complicated problems. We haven’t figured out how to fully utilize it, we don’t even know it’s capacity or how to optimize it yet. But we know it has amazing potential already.

A photographer during the Vancouver riots (loosing in hockey is a real first world problem isn’t it?) photographed an anonymous kissing couple. In less than 24hrs they were identified. Someone requested help identifying the source of some amazing Nazi era photographs on a Tuesday morning. By Tuesday evening the photographer and the back story were coming into focus. There are no algorithms for these problems.

Things like tagging photos, status updates, tweets, wiki’s, and the ability to index, search, sort them in near real-time is at it’s infancy. We’ve barely got the technology to handle data at this magnitude, much less optimize, and realize it’s full potential. Already it can solve things that you can’t brute force using a supercomputer. At some point we’ll be able to question this “machine” and it will know who most likely would know and who shouldn’t be bothered even seeing the question. This isn’t artificial intelligence, this is computer network assisted human intelligence collaboration.

The internet likely won’t solve π to a trillion places anytime soon, if ever. We’ll leave that dull task to a “simplistic” supercomputer. But it’s important to not underestimate the power of the collective human brain. It’s already able to solve very obscure and complicated questions with ease and can be used without a degree in computer science. It’s only 2011. Just 10 years ago we couldn’t solve the above questions nearly as quickly, or perhaps at all if the person(s) with an answer wasn’t online. Imagine what 2021 will bring.

The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments—totalitarian and democratic alike—are monitoring people’s online habits, endangering important human rights.

If we, the Web’s users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides.

- Tim Berners-Lee

The same web we credit with promoting freedom and taking down dictatorships is under attack itself. Will the web in 10 years still have the power to shift political power?

Tim Berners-Lee may know a thing or two about the web.

O’Brien said the biggest thing that held him back from both writing and performing was a fear of being criticized because he’s incredibly sensitive. He punched a big hole in one of the biggest clichés in fame—that you just have to develop a thick skin. He says he’s still just as sensitive and criticism still hurts just as much. The secret is to just keep going anyway, because you will get criticized no matter how brilliant you are.

This is clearly something that’s gotten more pronounced in a Web age, but there may be a silver lining to that. In a time when every video, photo, blog post and Tweet can easily be trashed by others, people learn that criticism is inevitable early on.

The sensitivity to criticism I suspect is a motivator to O’Brien himself and I’m certain to others. It’s hard for it to not have an impact, even on the most jaded of individuals.

I think that has become true for anyone in any industry, not just night show hosts. To quote a movie title “We Live In Public” thanks largely to the Internet.

I learned long ago to take criticism and praise with a grain of salt. Neither are always genuine or accurate, especially on the Internet. Anonymity does make people more aggressive, but it also sometimes makes them more honest. Most people have a hard time giving criticism to you’re face even when asked to do so. It’s almost too easy when you can type it from a distance. Praise can have many false motivators that can often be hard to detect online.

It’s never “fun” to get a really nasty or critical blog comment, email, article, blog post written etc. about you or something you’ve done. This is especially true if you’ve dedicated a lot of time and effort. Regardless at some point you need to ask yourself: Is there any truth to this? Can I do something better? Once you’ve done that, it’s time to move on and plow forward. You won’t always be able to learn something, but that’s OK.

From my experience being a web developer, writing code that’s open source, and blogging means you’re going to get feedback, welcome or not. With certainty 100% of it will not be positive. Some will be negative, some will just be vile. Some however will be constructive. It’s to your advantage to use it.

Criticism and debate are a critical part of academia. Given programming’s still strong ties to academia, perhaps more so than many other industries may be why it seems so natural to accept for me and at least some of my peers. It’s like being graded in school. Or perhaps it’s because I started at about 14 or 15 years old as a developer. I got used to this sort of thing pretty early on during my formative teen years and it’s more natural for me. I guess I’m not really a true part of the trophy kids generation despite falling into the age group.

This is an awesome animated documentary of the creation of the Internet. Way back in 1999 I did a paper on the same topic. Back then information on the creation of the Internet was not as plentiful as it is now. ISOC has a nice page and of course there is Wikipedia. I had to scrape it together from various sources. While Usenet documented it rather well, it wasn’t considered an acceptable resource for research purposes.

Bonus for being in HD.

Now here’s the “Internet” of 1981. This is not a concept, but a test of San Francisco Examiner content served electronically to personal computers. It’s however a misnomer to call it “Internet” instead of an online service via CompuServe. It wasn’t until about 1989 that CompuServe offered it’s subscribers limited access to the wider internet.

The San Francisco Examiner is still around though now free of charge and accessible on the Internet. They now use XHTML and jQuery and do offer images as well as text. What a difference a few 20+ years can make.

Here’s a great video of an Internet like concept in 1969. Some particularly interesting things are the gender specific roles and the simplicity of it all. The hardware is almost comical considering how few buttons are on the machines to control the entire interface. There isn’t even a keyboard. Amazingly multiple displays are used, something that even in 2009 is somewhat of a luxury. It even has a precursor to email, nicknamed the “Home Post Office”.

1. Use SSL When Available – Many sites offer SSL interfaces to make them more secure. Sometimes it’s used by default, sometimes it’s not. You can often test yourself by just changing the http:// in the url to https:. For example, you can do this for virtually all Google services including, Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. For Gmail there’s even an option to force SSL. If you still haven’t enabled this, do so now. Many non-Google products offer this too, for example Meebo.
2. Be Cautious Of Open Networks – Just because you see a WiFi hotspot doesn’t mean it’s safe. It’s trivial for someone to sit in a coffee shop with a laptop and pretend to be free internet access. Once someone connects they can essentially snoop on all that persons traffic. Connect only to networks you know and only use services over a VPN or HTTPS so that your traffic isn’t in plain text. To be extra cautious limit the amount of high risk activities you do on these networks (do your banking from home).
3. Don’t Connect To The Internet Directly – Even if you have only one computer, it’s still advisable to have an access point between you and your internet connection. Virtually all access points today provide decent firewall protection that will shield you from any of the horrors that exist on the internet. Any NAT device will provide a degree of protection (though NAT isn’t a firewall replacement). Access points can often be found for under $50 making this a very sound investment. Yes there are software firewalls, but they have downsides. The minimum is a hardware device between your computer and your broadband modem
4. Use Encryption For Your Home WiFi – If you have a home wireless network, make sure you have encryption enabled and use it. Ideally you should be using WPA2/AES since it’s the most secure at this point, though anything is better than nothing. While sites you browse over HTTPS are encrypted, you still want the entire tunnel encrypted. This does hurt performance slightly but most modern hardware (even the cheap stuff) is more than capable of handling this. Odds are you run an 802.11g network and your wireless is way faster than your broadband anyway. If you don’t have this enabled or don’t know how, check the manual, the manufacturer’s website or call tech support for help. You should be doing this.
5. Don’t Trust IM or Email For Confidential Information – IM and Email aren’t very secure mechanisms for sending information. They should never be trusted for things like sending credit cards, social security numbers, medical information, etc. If you ever see a merchant using IM to process a credit card (so they only need 1 terminal rather than one per location), pay cash or walk away. Sadly it happens. It’s perfectly fine for chatting with your friends, but not good for secure information. It’s possible to encrypt email with PGP or GPG, and IM’s with OTR or an encryption certificate but they require both parties to utilize them and are somewhat technical in nature and therefore few actually use them.
6. Only Download From Trusted Sources – Download only from trusted places. Download software only from the developer’s website, not just any place that has it. Look for software at places like Tucows, FileForum, download.com (operated by my employer) and other well trusted download locations. There’s a lot of hoax sites out there trying to distribute malware (malicious software). Also be suspicious of anyone offering commercial software for free.
7. Keep your AntiVirus Up To Date – Just installing AntiVirus software isn’t enough. The program is useless unless you keep the virus definitions (the files which tell the software what is a virus and what isn’t) up to date. All modern AntiVirus software does this automatically for the duration of the subscription. When your subscription expires either upgrade to a new version or renew the subscription. There are enough free AntiVirus solutions out there for Windows to make it inexcusable to not have protection. For paid AntiVirus, Norton AntiVirus 2009 is pretty good (I use it and reviewed it myself). So is Kaspersky. Avast and AVG would be my personal recommendations for free.
8. Use AntiSpyware – AntiVirus products go a long way, but you’re much better off if you use an AntiSpyware product as well. Many of them are free downloads, just make sure you get them from reputable places. I’d recommend Spybot S&D, AdAware and Windows Defender. Make sure to run the updater within the product at least once a week, and scan on occasion (weekly, biweekly, whatever). Mac users don’t really need to do anything here as Spyware isn’t much of an issue thus far.
9. Be Aware Of Phishing – Never open links in email unless you’re sure of its origin. If your bank wants you to login and do something, visit the banks website by going to the site yourself rather than clicking on a suspicious link. No business will ask you to verify your password. Microsoft has some more tips.
10. Use A Secure Browser – Firefox 3, IE 7+, Safari 3.2 all offer Phishing protection. This isn’t perfect (nothing really is), but it can greatly reduce your chances of being a victim of a phishing attack. Enough browsers support protection that you shouldn’t be browsing without it. Firefox 3 also includes malware protection. I have a Firefox bias though that doesn’t mean you can ignore this. Use a modern browser with phishing protection.
11. Secure Your Computer – If you have a laptop you should have a password when logging in. If you don’t, correct this. It’s easy to do on Windows or Mac OS X. This will at least stop dumb thieves, which are fairly numerous. Even if your laptop never leaves your home this is still a good idea. It’s not impossible for the cable guy, phone guy, refrigerator repair man, etc. to try and steal something like a laptop. This is such a small step that can save you some trouble later on.
12. Secure Your Cell Phone – It’s not going overboard to secure your cell phone. If you’re like a growing number of people, your cell phone is a much more complicated device than it was just a few years ago. It can contain a lot of data including phone numbers, your calendar, photos, browsing history, email, even financial data. Just this week someone sued because they lost their cell phone, which happened to contain nude pictures that they claim were leaked online. Most phones include the ability to add some form of a password or passcode. The iPhone even has an option to wipe data after a certain number of unsuccessful attempts. Securing this compact hard drive isn’t a bad idea.
13. Don’t Put Things Online You May Regret – People who do this admittedly deserve what they get. Posting information regarding your personal lows may work out to your advantage in the future. Already 1 in 10 college admissions officers check social networking profiles according to Kaplan. When I graduated college in 2006 I could tell who actually looked at my job application by looking at the log files for this blog. All but one or two potential employers went to Google to screen me. In more than one case I actually used tail -f and watched them (live!) browsing this blog from their corporate network while they screened me over the phone. Only one actually brought it up in an interview (and he said he was impressed by depth of my technical posts). That was way back in 2006. Employers and colleges are much more savvy now. I get emails from headhunters constantly because of this blog. Because of this I know it’s not scaremongering. People out there really do use the Internet to screen strangers. This is standard practice, especially if you’re under 30 (and more likely to have some digital trace online) or if you apply for a tech/internet job.
14. Backup – Backing up is important. Get an external hard drive and backup all data you care about on a routine basis. I’d suggest at least once a week. I’d also suggest having some sort of off-site backup for things you wouldn’t want to loose in the event of a fire or natural disaster (email, financial records, etc.). You could use online services like Amazon’s S3, though make sure to use encryption, or the offline method of saving them to a disk and putting that disk either at a parents home, safe deposit box, etc. Just make sure that disk is either encrypted or in a secure location where it won’t fall into the wrong hands. A fireproof safe is another way to go though you’ll want to make sure you use a UL Class 125 safe rated for at least 1hr. They can withstand fire and keep the internal climate at no more than 125°F and 80% humidity, suitable for magnetic media. If it’s not UL tested make sure it’s suitable for the media you are trying to store for at least 1hr, preferably more.

The definition of broadband in the US is now being redefined as 768kbps. They will now collect upstream data, and use census-track data. This is a major win since it will more accurately show how many people really do have broadband, and more importantly how many do not.

I personally disagree on the number and think it should be at least 2Mbps, but it’s a win regardless.

The pacific rim annihilates the United States when it comes to broadband. According to Akamai’s State Of The Internet for Q1 2008 high broadband (greater than 5Mbps) is where we really start to show our deficiencies. Here’s a look at broadband which they define as simply greater than 2Mbps:

Pretty pathetic considering our last Vice President invented the Internet . We are the largest in terms of sq miles, but when you consider the US population density, the bulk of our land is very sparsely populated. 80.8% of the US population lives in an urban setting [Warning: PDF].

Japan by comparison has 66.0% of it’s population in an urban setting. Belgium has a surprising 91.5% which may account for it’s #2 position. Switzerland has 44.4% yet makes 3rd place threatening Belgium’s position.

I’m far from the first one to complain about the poor state of broadband. BusinessWeek and CNet both have relatively good discussions about the topic.

The future of media is clearly moving online as people demand to consume it on their schedule as they desire. Take a look at some of the statistics and it’s clearly a large industry. I suspect the lack of broadband infrastructure will be a real problem in the next several years as the rest of the world becomes very easy to distribute media to, and the US still faces challenges.

Solution? Highly debatable, but if so many other countries can do something about it, I suspect it’s achievable here in the US as well. I suspect that the taxes made from companies that do business on the internet from ecommerce to advertising would make this a decent investment for the US government to at least partially back. The more places companies make money, the more places the government does. That may be necessary as not all markets are profitable enough for telco’s to bother with. There have been various attempts to jumpstart this effort, but none to date have been successful.

It’s not only about just having access, it’s also the cost. As BusinessWeek points out in the article above, broadband in the US is not cheap.

Perhaps wireless will finally allow for competition and lower prices, at least that’s what everyone is hoping for. The question is if it will happen, if the technology will be there (wireless is generally high latency), and if it will be affordable for the common man.

I suspect in the next 4 years this will become and even bigger topic of discussion as some of the top ranking countries start to reach the point of saturation.

Southpark last week featured an internet outage as a plot. Pretty clever though I was disappointed to not see 1 reference to the series of tubes. I’m not sure if the reference to Linksys (Cisco) being responsible for the Internet being down was a complement or an insult. Though those Linksys boxes are infamous with just dying like that until you power cycle. Any other brand seems to have figured out how to not have that issue. Linux firmware on a Linksys also seems to remedy it. References to “Independence Day” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” were clever.

You can watch it online by clicking on the screen grab.

I wonder if this concept could be brought to the web in a secure, but convenient method. There are many applications that could benefit. You could pull widgets off a page and onto your desktop as an application. For example you could take Meebo, an online IM service. In a matter of seconds it would feel as if you downloaded a new application, but your still using your browser. People love web applications, and hate downloads. This has been known for a while. Meebo is extremely popular because it feels somewhat like a desktop application, but it’s web based. Think of this as Apple’s Dashboard taken to a whole new level.

Take for example this psudocode (it’s just to make a point, not an API):

<div id="frame">
    <p>This is a window that can be brought to the desktop</p>
    <p id="test"></p>
</div>

var widget = document.getElementById('frame');

// This would test if it's currently coherent
if(!widget.coherence){
    // This would prompt the user to allow coherence on the page.  Typical extension-like install warning.
    widget.allowCoherence();
}

// When you first enter coherence mode
widget.coherence.oncoherence = function(){
    document.getElementById('test').innerHTML = 'I\'m in your OohS, integratin your web pagez';
};

// When you focus (bring a window to the front)
widget.coherence.onfocus = function(){
    document.getElementById('test').innerHTML = 'Your in focus';
};

// When you first enter coherence mode
widget.coherence.onminimize= function(){
     document.getElementById('test').innerHTML = 'I\'m idle right now.';
};

The first time your browser would hit allowCoherence() you would be prompted to allow coherence for that domain. Other than the integrated look/feel it would adhere 100% to typical web sandboxing. This isn’t like building an XULRunner app where JS can write to the filesystem. It would just be a way to make web applications more usable for people. and breakout of the web browser feel.

There are other things that can be done as well. For example css theming could give the app a more native look/feel dependent on the host. Perhaps just an attribute in the <html/> would trigger the browser to render things to look like a native app by default (pinstripe background for page by default, etc). Another great thing to use with it would be offline support. A little more cleverness would allow you to create bookmarks that essentially “open the application”.

Ultimately this would still be about web applications, but making them live outside of the browser window. The user wouldn’t need to install anything more than a web browser. The applications would be as safe to use as browsing to a website.

So there’s my giant idea. Implementing this in something like Firefox would be a rather large task, and to be useful the API would need to be standardized across browsers, but much of the underlying stuff is there. Anyone interested in taking web applications to the next level?