Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how Stuff Looks dot Coming hither everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette.
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how Stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and as usual, I have sitting next to me senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Hid ho, Okay, that's a new one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like to bust on a new one once in
Speaker 1: a while to keep you on your toes. All right, then,
Speaker 1: uh so let's see. Um. Yeah, I got some special
Speaker 1: to start this one off. You know what's coming. We
Speaker 1: all know what's coming. Listen. It's listener mail, all right,
Speaker 1: listener man, you got it. We're happy now, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: oh all right, I'm just stunned. Yeah, I'm sure our
Speaker 1: listeners are too. Okay. This one comes from Scotty. Scotty
Speaker 1: says I would like to know more about the Internet
Speaker 1: to project. There's a website, but not that much to tail.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Scotty for that listener me, I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. That was so we thought we'd talked
Speaker 1: about internet too. Oh right, do you want to jump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think maybe, uh, I shouldn't have written it down
Speaker 1: as Internet t o O. So this this mean I
Speaker 1: need to start. Yeah, it's funny that you brought that up, Scotty,
Speaker 1: because this is one of these things that you know
Speaker 1: people here about from time to time, but nobody ever
Speaker 1: really talks about. It was supposed to be this big
Speaker 1: thing back in the in the mid nineties, because everybody
Speaker 1: was talking about the imminent collapse of the Internet and
Speaker 1: how it's all going to blow up, and how the
Speaker 1: educational users of the Internet, we're all gonna go off
Speaker 1: and start their own thing called Internet Too and you
Speaker 1: can keep this Internet. We're gonna have our own. I'm
Speaker 1: taking my ball and going home. So yeah, it didn't
Speaker 1: exactly work out that way, but there is still an
Speaker 1: Internet Too. Yeah. So there are a lot of miscau
Speaker 1: receptions about it, mainly because, again, let's Chris pointed out,
Speaker 1: not very many people chat about it that much. So
Speaker 1: Internet Too it's it's it's two different things. First of all,
Speaker 1: if you're thinking like there's a super secret Internet that
Speaker 1: exists below our current Internet, that's not what Internet Too is. Now,
Speaker 1: that's something else. Entirely we can't talk about it. We
Speaker 1: can't that's the dark net. We can't go into that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the Internet too, that's it's really a consortium. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a group of universities, research institutes, corporations that have
Speaker 1: got had They've come together to create an environment wherein uh,
Speaker 1: these these different organizations can utilize a network, a very
Speaker 1: high speed network for purposes of research and sharing knowledge,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So sort of the same thing
Speaker 1: that the original and you know what, the original intent
Speaker 1: of the Internet was, go way back, and there there
Speaker 1: is it is kind of from what I could tell
Speaker 1: in my research, Um, there is kind of a second
Speaker 1: Internet along the lines of the regular Internet that they use.
Speaker 1: They all have high speed fiber optic connections. But it's
Speaker 1: not a separate internet. Um, so they are. They are dedicated,
Speaker 1: it's dedicated hardware what you're talking about. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: is part of the Internet as a whole. It's just
Speaker 1: that they are the only ones who have access to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were talking about very special routers. We're talking about
Speaker 1: special a special backbone, a fiber backbone for this this
Speaker 1: Internet that stretches thirteen thousand five miles if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: from my little sheet of facts, and um the kilometer
Speaker 1: conversion not because I did it just before we came
Speaker 1: in here. So so I'm sorry to all of our
Speaker 1: friends in other nations, but we're talking about United States
Speaker 1: centric thing anyways. So Internet to the the idea here
Speaker 1: is that we they these research organizations. Let's let's take
Speaker 1: a quick step back into the way back machine and
Speaker 1: talk about the origins of the Internet and UH and
Speaker 1: networks in general. If you go all the way back
Speaker 1: to our panet, you're talking about several research institutions uh
Speaker 1: networking together and sending information from one massive computer to another.
Speaker 1: And the one of the ultimate goals here was being
Speaker 1: able to share knowledge at really really rapid speeds. And
Speaker 1: uh so the Internet for a long time, that's really
Speaker 1: what was all about. It was mostly schools, universities, research
Speaker 1: organizations that was that used these these lines in order
Speaker 1: to share information and open up databases so that places
Speaker 1: that had a really rich amount of information on a
Speaker 1: specific subject could share it with everybody instead of it
Speaker 1: just being centralized in one location. Yep. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, the first time I used the Internet, which
Speaker 1: was nineteen and a half years ago. Now, um, you
Speaker 1: know that that's you know, nobody had heard of the internet.
Speaker 1: I mean people had heard of the Internet, but uh,
Speaker 1: you like, if you went up to somebody on the
Speaker 1: street and said, hey, you know, what kind of Internet
Speaker 1: connection you have at home, they wouldn't have because they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have really known about it and what it was
Speaker 1: and what it was supposed to be for. But everybody,
Speaker 1: and you know, the college where I went, would have
Speaker 1: email connections and uh you know, could use chat and
Speaker 1: you know, basic basic functions protocols in two colors, green
Speaker 1: and black. I have all sorts of colors here. Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the that was the the original kind of purpose for
Speaker 1: the Internet. And then of course the Internet opened up
Speaker 1: to everybody, and then came the World Wide Web eventually,
Speaker 1: which again originated as sort of a project on this
Speaker 1: this college university environment. But once the Web opened up
Speaker 1: to everybody and the Internet really opened up to everybody,
Speaker 1: suddenly you've got this this great network. But it's being
Speaker 1: used for lots of different things, not just research and
Speaker 1: and sending information or or calculating law numbers. And if
Speaker 1: you wanted to do that kind of stuff, if you
Speaker 1: wanted to do the massive amounts of research or sending
Speaker 1: lots of information between one major group and another. Uh,
Speaker 1: it meant competing for bandwidth with all these other applications
Speaker 1: that everybody else was using. So suddenly this incredibly useful
Speaker 1: research tool and academic tool became less useful. Uh not
Speaker 1: that it completely was, you know, useless. It's still how
Speaker 1: to use. It just wasn't nearly as fast as it
Speaker 1: had been because now everybody was on it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of commercial traffic now, So all
Speaker 1: those other packets were going back to the whole Information
Speaker 1: super Highway name that we used to give the Internet.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of our listeners actually remember that,
Speaker 1: um I do, but the Information super Highway. Think of
Speaker 1: it like that. Like originally the super highway was allowed
Speaker 1: only allowed traffic from ten percent of the population on
Speaker 1: that highway, and it was lanes wide, exact, there's no
Speaker 1: one in the way, you can go as fast as
Speaker 1: you want, there's nothing to worry about. And then the
Speaker 1: highway opens up for everyone something You've got traffic jams everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's essentially what we're talking about here, and that's that's
Speaker 1: why everybody was talking about this in the mid nineties
Speaker 1: about how the Internet was going to implode under the
Speaker 1: weight of all the traffic. Well, it's one of those things. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think the the information super Highway at that point
Speaker 1: was maybe four lanes wide. But that's the thing, you know, people,
Speaker 1: you don't really see this, but as the Internet grows
Speaker 1: in traffic, they're also adding on more lanes of super highway.
Speaker 1: UM so, I mean it's it's really grown to handle
Speaker 1: more traffic as time has worn on. It's just that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's infinitely more traffic going on. It's just
Speaker 1: like in the real physical world. Yeah, exactly. So so
Speaker 1: what's the solution. Well, the solution is to build a
Speaker 1: different set of roads for just the universities. UM. Back
Speaker 1: in October one in Chicago, a group of they for
Speaker 1: university they had salmon for lunch. Thirty four universities. UH
Speaker 1: representatives from thirty four universities met in a Chicago hotel
Speaker 1: and they committed to this idea of forming an organization
Speaker 1: at that time called Internet Too. And the organization would
Speaker 1: also be dedicated in to finding ways of dedicating specific
Speaker 1: resources to the academic research world and uh academic and research,
Speaker 1: I should say, just academic research and UH so that
Speaker 1: that kind of set the ball in motion. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until we started actually seeing corporations kind of join into
Speaker 1: on us and uh and provide the hardware that was
Speaker 1: gonna be necessary. You know, you had to have grant
Speaker 1: money come in to fund it. And you might say, well,
Speaker 1: what how does this benefit the rest of us? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not, for instance, I haven't been in college in
Speaker 1: a long time, So how do I benefit from this
Speaker 1: Internet Too thing? While they're a lot of different ways
Speaker 1: we benefit, one very simple one is that Internet Too.
Speaker 1: You can think of it as the way the way
Speaker 1: Internet to his website describes it. You can think of
Speaker 1: their network as being four to five years ahead of
Speaker 1: our current technology that we use on the Internet right now.
Speaker 1: And then, in a on to our sister podcast, High
Speaker 1: Speed Stuff, I think of its sort of as a
Speaker 1: test track for the Internet. So yeah, you can think
Speaker 1: of it like, well, so their technology is why why
Speaker 1: don't we have that technology in a more widespread, universal
Speaker 1: kind of of of approach. Well, the reason is that
Speaker 1: this Internet Too is being used as a as a
Speaker 1: test track. You can't be sure that everything is going
Speaker 1: to work. In fact, most stuff isn't going to work.
Speaker 1: The first time out, you're gonna have to tweak it,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to adjust it, and I'll and
Speaker 1: that's eventually the the successes are going to trickle down
Speaker 1: into everything that we use. It's just gonna take a
Speaker 1: few years. But the the fact that this exists allows
Speaker 1: researchers to create new applications, new uh coding. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of things that they can do you
Speaker 1: over this network that they couldn't do over the regular Internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, now that the Internet is such
Speaker 1: a big part of all of our lives. Um, if
Speaker 1: they tried to, you know, throw the switch and convert
Speaker 1: everybody over to a new technology overnight, it's bound to
Speaker 1: take out a large section of the Internet worldwide. And
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's the reason for needing to keep
Speaker 1: that in a separate test environment. But there are already
Speaker 1: some things that that we're seeing, you know, that have
Speaker 1: been developed from Internet to technology. I mean, they were
Speaker 1: pioneers in i p v six technology, which is the
Speaker 1: newer version of the Internet Protocol address UM. Basically, to
Speaker 1: accommodate the number of people on the Internet, you have
Speaker 1: to have you know, everybody's got an address where your
Speaker 1: information is sent, and uh, you know, there are so
Speaker 1: many people and only so many I P numbers that
Speaker 1: they can use, so they basically tacked on a couple
Speaker 1: of octets on the uh the IP address. I mean
Speaker 1: I'm oversimplifying here, but this is one of the things
Speaker 1: that they tried out on Internet to was, you know,
Speaker 1: will I PV six work? And uh, you know, now
Speaker 1: gradually it's sort of making us way over into the
Speaker 1: real world. Yeah, and you're you know, we we talked
Speaker 1: about the the speed of this network. You might be
Speaker 1: wondering how fast is it. Well, the backbone can support
Speaker 1: speeds of up to a hundred gigabits per second. That's
Speaker 1: a little fast. That's amazingly lightning fast. If for a comparison,
Speaker 1: I looked up Verizon's FiOS service Yes, Yes, which comes
Speaker 1: in several different tiers. The first one, I believe is
Speaker 1: fifteen megabits per second. That's megabits as opposed to gigabits.
Speaker 1: You know, we're talking about orders of magnitude here. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the fastest that I saw, which may not be
Speaker 1: Verizon's fastest because I just did this very quickly, was
Speaker 1: fifty combits per second, which is still tiny. Now. Now
Speaker 1: the hundred gigabits per second we're talking about, that's the backbone.
Speaker 1: That's just the information being able to travel across the
Speaker 1: backbone of this network. The interfaces that people are actually
Speaker 1: using do not go that fast, um, although they're trying
Speaker 1: to support interfaces that would support go up to around
Speaker 1: forty gigabits per second right now, as I recall UM,
Speaker 1: which is again lightning fast. And you may say, well,
Speaker 1: why do they need speeds that high, Well, some of
Speaker 1: the applications are using involve enormous numbers and calculations. For example,
Speaker 1: the Large Hadron Collider when it finally goes online, assuming
Speaker 1: it ever does, uh, that data is going to be
Speaker 1: shared with scientists from around the world. And it's not
Speaker 1: just going to be the people who are at the
Speaker 1: CERN facility. They're gonna be other laboratories. They're going to
Speaker 1: use this information to really take a look at what
Speaker 1: makes our universe tick. So we're talking about big, big
Speaker 1: questions here, which coincidentally require big big numbers when you're
Speaker 1: when you're crunching the data, and so all of the
Speaker 1: information that's coming out is going to take up huge
Speaker 1: amounts of bandwidth and so without a dedicated network, uh,
Speaker 1: it would take ages for that information to get to
Speaker 1: where it's going. Another thing they work on on Internet
Speaker 1: too is middleware. They have a middleware initiative and that
Speaker 1: Uh it's not very sexy, I gotta admit. UM basically
Speaker 1: it's a it's a type of software, but it negotiates connections.
Speaker 1: I mean it involves UM things like authentication, identification, security,
Speaker 1: UM directories. It's the kind of thing that will help you,
Speaker 1: you know, get one packet to the other end of
Speaker 1: the network and back, uh, you know, more smoothly and
Speaker 1: and securely than it would necessarily using an UM less
Speaker 1: adept technology. And eventually we can hope to see the
Speaker 1: sort of network capability extend to our Internet. Again, when
Speaker 1: we're talking about why is in our Internet as fast
Speaker 1: as there's there, don't not to make an US versus
Speaker 1: them sort of thing. But for Internet to you've got
Speaker 1: to remember this is going to some very specific schools
Speaker 1: and some resource organizations, and that's about it. So the
Speaker 1: network does not have to be as broad as it
Speaker 1: would have to be for consumers. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: stretch into various neighborhoods it's going to very specific locations,
Speaker 1: so when you're laying the fiber, you don't have to
Speaker 1: lay it everywhere like you would with a more widespread approach.
Speaker 1: So you know, to to try and develop that for
Speaker 1: an entire nation would be very expensive. And and that's
Speaker 1: another thing is that there's a lot of money that's
Speaker 1: going into this project, and it's being raised by various foundations, organizations, donations,
Speaker 1: some of the companies are donating time and uh um
Speaker 1: resources to this, so it's not like a more widespread
Speaker 1: nationwide fiber network is going to just pop up out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. And the the Internet Too, is a nonprofit
Speaker 1: organization too, so it's uh you know, completely dedicated to
Speaker 1: research and Internet research. So now grant this hasn't stopped
Speaker 1: people from trying to use it to do naughty things.
Speaker 1: I read a report about students at various universities who
Speaker 1: had created a site on Internet too that or they
Speaker 1: didn't create it, they were they were using a site
Speaker 1: that was a file sharing site meant to share research files,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, to distribute videos and music and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. So again, you know, once again,
Speaker 1: you you've got the fast network access. There's someone's going
Speaker 1: to use it to download a movie. And uh, of
Speaker 1: course at that speed you can get a high definition
Speaker 1: film and a couple of minutes. It's not the same
Speaker 1: thing as if you were dialing up over Kazaar or something.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the I'll imagine if it takes you a
Speaker 1: couple of hours to download a film, whether you're doing
Speaker 1: so legitimately or otherwise, we'll only take you a minute
Speaker 1: or two maybe using this connection. I can see why
Speaker 1: some people were tempted to do that, although you know
Speaker 1: it's not what it was intended for. No, not at all,
Speaker 1: but it happens. That's about all of God. Oh good,
Speaker 1: because I'm done too. But that, of course brings us
Speaker 1: to listener me. Yes, and this listener mail comes from
Speaker 1: j s a k A Mac Daddy, Chris and Jonathan.
Speaker 1: I have listened to every one of your podcasts, which
Speaker 1: get me through the daily monotony of commuting two and
Speaker 1: from work. I have an English literature degree, but gravitate
Speaker 1: to all things tech. I heard your challenge or a
Speaker 1: Spencerian Sonnet, so I felt compelled to give one a whirl.
Speaker 1: I am an avid Mac user, but use Windows XP
Speaker 1: Pro at work. I do love my Max, my MacBook,
Speaker 1: my wife's MacBook, and my daughter's iMac all work great
Speaker 1: with a virtual Windows machine on them. But I can
Speaker 1: assure you that Microsoft isn't the monster that most Mac
Speaker 1: freaks make them out to be. I'd be lost without
Speaker 1: Microsoft Office for both Mac and Windows. And so here's
Speaker 1: the sonnets, the war between the giants, waging a war
Speaker 1: of Apples and Windows. Who'll win their dumb be all
Speaker 1: and ind all brawl competing for markets? Frustration grows the
Speaker 1: more you see and here, the more you stall. The
Speaker 1: world was made for Windows, after all, but Max are rising,
Speaker 1: gaining every day. For Apple needs no quarter. After all,
Speaker 1: we buy more iPods and i phones today for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Apples won't go away, but find a niche it every
Speaker 1: market share and soon, well soon will their trails converge.
Speaker 1: As you say, so they both will operate in the air,
Speaker 1: both move along the same old dusty road, fighting so
Speaker 1: hard for their tragger load. Thanks JS, that's awesome. The
Speaker 1: Apples versus Uh Microsoft in in poletic form. I liked it.
Speaker 1: I like you very much, and I agree. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: Microsoft Office for Mac is. I think it's good. I
Speaker 1: think it's a fantastic product. Well there you go. So
Speaker 1: it's got the endorsement from Mr Blatt endorse anything. I
Speaker 1: just I like it. Yeah, so send those checks to
Speaker 1: how Sta care of Johnson Strickland. Hey, I'm just I
Speaker 1: don't want you to get overwhelmed by mail. Uh So
Speaker 1: this is one of several sonnets I've been sent in.
Speaker 1: We are going to eventually get through all of them.
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing that our listeners have done this,
Speaker 1: And thank you all. Thank you JS for listending this one.
Speaker 1: And if any of you have any comments, question and
Speaker 1: epic poems uh I don't know, um jokes, you could
Speaker 1: write us our email addresses tech stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Just don't throw us any tech support
Speaker 1: issues because you're not likely to get the help you
Speaker 1: need at the speed with which you need it. Yes,
Speaker 1: no tech support requests please, because chances are we have
Speaker 1: no idea what the heck went wrong with your iPod
Speaker 1: unless you dropped down the toilet, in which case you
Speaker 1: need to get a new one at any rate. If
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about the Internet and computers
Speaker 1: and things that interact with the Internet and computers, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend this great website really, what is it how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com? Oh my god, Yes, it's fantastic
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you again really soon for
Speaker 1: moral this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
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