Modern Wisdom #213 - James Ball - Who Owns The Internet & How It Owns Us
Aug 24, 2020
James Ball, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of 'The System,' dives into the complex world of the internet and its unseen infrastructure. He discusses undersea cables and their surprising vulnerabilities, like shark attacks. The conversation touches on the intricacies of internet governance, including the challenges of managing domain ownership. Ball also critiques programmatic advertising's impact on privacy and emphasizes the pressing need for data governance to counter Silicon Valley's monopolistic trends.
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Interviewing Snowden
- James Ball interviewed Edward Snowden on stage in a stadium with 15,000 people.
- A dramatic video build-up preceded Snowden's appearance on screen, creating a tense moment for Ball.
The Invisible Internet
- The internet's pervasive nature overshadows its complex infrastructure and control mechanisms.
- Ball's book explores these often overlooked aspects of the internet.
ARPANET and the First Message
- The internet originated from ARPANET, a US military project in the 1960s, aimed at networking computers.
- The first message sent across this network, intended to be "login", resulted in a system crash after "lo" was transmitted.
