When I first got connected to the Internet and after I found a way to sort through the garbage and the annoying commercial pop up ads and flashing blinking banners, I found an amazing community of networking software developers. It was a “shared culture of expert programmers and networking wizards” who I soon found were some of the nicest people on the Internet.
And I discovered the Internet wars. I discovered the hackers who literally built the Internet and continue to keep the Internet free. The battle for the Internet is always raging. Corporations want to control it for commercial purposes. Government wants to control it for information and propaganda purposes. Microsoft wants to dominate the software. Amazon wants to control a large piece of the pie. But I feel safe knowing that out there in the shadows there are the hackers, who will pounce upon anyone who tries to place a choke hold on the free flow of information.
I am not talking about destructive crackers who pull pranks or write malicious viruses. They are not hackers. They are immature irresponsible amateurs. The true Hackers are the defenders of freedom on the Internet. They know more about networking than the government or the multi-billion dollar corporations. They sometimes work in their basements.
Another thing I discovered is the free education provided on the Internet. If you want to learn to code web pages there are many places that will teach you. The best place I have found is W3 Schools. It is free and well organized.
So Whether you want to build a web site and sell your products, buy things, get an education on line, or just learn how to do things, the Internet is the greatest opportunity today.
Keep the Internet free. God bless the hackers.
Filed under: The Internet, hackers
