Internet The World Wide Community

Also this week we read about politics on the web. How new ideas are being distributed electronically throughout the world. The internet has penetrated every continent, and hundreds of countries are using its resources. Here is a map of the internet generated by the Opte Project (www.opte.org).



















Map Key
Asia Pacific - Red
Europe/Middle East/Central Asia/Africa - Green
North America - Blue
Latin American and Caribbean - Yellow
RFC1918 IP Addresses - Cyan
Unknown - White

In the United States access to the Internet is provided by private companies. In other countries, like China and Cuba, government provides and regulates Internet access. There has been talk by the FCC to provide free national wireless internet. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809560499668087.html) If that does come into reality, how much control would the government have on regulating where we can go on the Internet?

Cuba is a great example of government controlling the Internet. According to the New York Times, Cuba has only one Internet café, in the capitol building, and it removes any unauthorized access to the Internet through satellite. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/world/americas/06cuba.html) It amazes me at how much people put up with outside of the United States.

Usually when we talk about our community before the Internet, it was extremely localized. At the largest it may cover an entire city geographically. But now thanks to the Internet it has become a world wide community. Just recently I had an encounter with a person living in Taiwan, through the Internet. We have never talked before and we have very little in common, but we both were trying to expand our knowledge and understanding of the world through the Internet.

I relish in being apart of a growing community. It makes me sad that some people throughout the world are being denied this privilege by their own government. But these people have found a way to share what they have learned with their fellow citizens. In Cuba they have an underground information exchange via memory sticks. That amazes me how much the people of the United States take for granted.