This is my first blog's version v1
I am starting this blog with my own true story.
One day, I was walking on the roof, and I saw the Jio cellular tower. A thought came to my mind: What if my great-grandfather came back to this time? (He never saw a television.) What would he see?
He would see my younger brother holding a small device, and someone would be popping out of it, talking to him (let’s say a YouTube video).
Maybe he would be amazed. What is this small device? It looks like magic!
We are talking about mobile phones. What are we capable of doing with them?
We can talk to someone who is thousands of kilometers away from us. Okay, we could do that using a telegraph—no big deal—but what about watching the other person in real-time (video call)?
We can watch videos, movies, and connect with friends using social media in real-time.
We can even travel the world virtually (satellite view and street view on Google Maps).
This is amazing, isn’t it?
But the question is simple: How did our previous generation create this magic?
I know the question might seem simple, but its answer... well, that’s not easy to explain.
So, this blog is part of a "learn in public" initiative, where I will share my current understanding of the internet.
Here’s the problem statement: We want to send a "hello" message from a computer in Mumbai to a computer in New York (a distance of around 13,000 km).
"Hello" is an English word. First, I had an idea: Let’s connect Mumbai and New York using a copper wire. On the Mumbai side, I have a switch, and on the New York side, I have a light bulb. One thing we already know is how to encode "hello" into ASCII values (we’ll talk about this later). The ASCII values for "hello" are: 104 101 108 108 111. When converted to binary, it looks like this: 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111. Every single character is 8 bits, which is a byte.
Now, here’s what we do:
We tell the person in New York that when the bulb is on, consider it a "1," and when it’s off, consider it a "0." Every second, they have to note this down. After collecting all the binary data, they can decode it back into the word "hello."
And boom! We have sent our message.
Of course, there are many problems with this approach. For example, copper wires have limitations, which is why we use optical fiber cables. We also use encryption technology to make the internet more secure. There are protocols and models (like TCP/IP and OSI) that ensure everything works smoothly. And we’ve already built a great infrastructure—maybe we’re in the most developed phase of the internet.
As a Gen-Z, sometimes I feel so lucky.
Some important things to note:
My blog is oversimplified. Let me talk about real-world terms:
We use ASCII to encode "hello," but there are many different ways to encode words (I only know about ASCII currently).
There are different protocols at different layers of the OSI model (HTTP, HTTPS, TCP, FTP, etc.). I’m currently learning about them.
Routers, switches, hubs, optical fiber cables, and cellular towers are some of the basic components of the internet.
That’s the end of this blog, version v1. #LearnInPublic. I am open to feedback (related to content, editing and if there is any technical mistakes please let me know).
This is my first blog—what do you think about it?
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