What you Don't know about the internet?

The internet being simple is extremely complex and putting out any information on the internet will always remain there. But there are a few things internet experts don't want you to know.

1. Can it be switched off?

The answer is no. At least not on a worldwide scale. The internet does not have one common switch that can be just flipped and the entire world falls off the grid. Each country has many number of ISPs who control internet access for particular areas. The government of a country can shut down the internet in a country but shutting the internet worldwide is impossible. Even if the internet is shut down, internet experts will still be able to find a way to access it through satellites. 

2. Does it affect the environment?

Sending an E-mail from one continent to another doesn't seem like an activity that will affect the environment but it does affect the carbon footprint. An estimate suggests that just the data base of the internet takes 152 billion kilowatt-hours to be powered continuously. Sending any kind of data across the internet is putting load on the system causing it to use more power. With people continuously sharing data across the internet data base, more and more power is being used affecting the environment and causing a huge impact on the environment.

3. Are there multiple internets?

Approximately 40 years ago during the inception of the internet, there were many number of internets and each internet was owned by a service provider. The problem with this model was the lack of connection between each internet. To solve this it was decided that there would be only one internet in the world allowing everybody to remain connected to each other. Today I am writing this article from India and it is being read by someone in the United States. This has been possible only because of one internet that connects all of us.

4. The dark side to the internet.

I myself wasn't very aware that there exists a dark internet known as Deep web or dark web. This section of the world wide web is not indexed by search engines and there is very good reason for this.  The deep web is said to be approximately 400-500 times bigger than the surface web but these figures are a very rough estimation. Websites that aren't indulging in illegal activities come under the Dark Internet category and websites with illegal activities are categorised under Deep Web. The dark internet is known to be growing rapidly. Due to this the dark internet is not quantifiable. 

5. The internet also has black holes.

These black holes in the internet are similar to black holes in Space. If you send an email and it is not received on the other side then you might have run into one of these black holes. Like black holes in space, black holes of the internet eat up information in the form of losing packets of data. These losses can occur due to improper maintenance of cables or problems within the routers. Since the internet has such a large surface area to the point where it covers the entire Earth it is impossible to remove all these black holes. Distances are also a factor for losses of data but that problem has a much less occurrence because of ISPs (Internet Service Providers).

The last two facts mentioned in this blog weren't even known to me. After researching I was able to find these two unknown facts about the internet. These facts must be known to everybody that uses the internet.

Thanks for reading!