When most of us think of protests, riots and wars; we think of something violent, loud and destructive. This among other reasons is why a battle happening right now under our noses going mostly undetected. Only the battleground isn't some other country, its on our computers and in server rooms. So today we're going to talk about "The Information War."

One of the coolest and most interesting facts about WiFi, is that it was created on accident while searching for deep space black holes! I love this next video as it makes the concept of how WiFi works really simple. If anything, it will give you a strong grasp of how quickly data is flying through the air all around us!

As we learned above, WiFi is made up of radio waves. Since you're so intelligent, you're probably wondering, "If WiFi is just radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, can we use light to make WiFi too? Instead of just radios?" Brilliant question, and I'm thrilled to report that we are in fact doing just that. This next video is pretty mind blowing to think about how incredible WiFi already is and to realize we've only scratched the surface! Soon enough our skies may glow with the constant transmission of all our light speed data.

*don't let slow data ruin your internet!

If you feel your tech is getting a little worn-out or outdated, I went ahead and listed some of the gear we use and stand behind today for you to consider using or switching over to. 

Internet, and technology as a whole, has made massive leaps forward in the past 50 years. Today, I would like to guide you from where the internet and WiFi were born, to how they work and what we're doing to make them even better. Join me and enjoy as I share some of my favorite video clips along the way. This one should be fun!

One of the coolest and most interesting facts about WiFi, is that it was created on accident while searching for deep space black holes! I love this next video as it makes the concept of how WiFi works really simple. If anything, it will give you a strong grasp of how quickly data is flying through the air all around us!

As we learned above, WiFi is made up of radio waves. Since you're so intelligent, you're probably wondering, "If WiFi is just radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, can we use light to make WiFi too? Instead of just radios?" Brilliant question, and I'm thrilled to report that we are in fact doing just that. This next video is pretty mind blowing to think about how incredible WiFi already is and to realize we've only scratched the surface! Soon enough our skies may glow with the constant transmission of all our light speed data.

*don't let slow data ruin your internet!

If you feel your tech is getting a little worn-out or outdated, I went ahead and listed some of the gear we use and stand behind today for you to consider using or switching over to. 

The internet exists almost everywhere you can find civilization today. Instantly connecting with someone on the other side of the world and sending massive amounts of data back and forth has become a technological marvel that we depend on everyday. From streaming YouTube in New York to orchestrating billion-dollar companies in China, we simply cannot go without. 

Imagine the pharaohs in Egypt while they were building the pyramids. They understood that individually one man couldn't build much, and definitely not the massive structures they were to sleep deep inside today. Using the power of their connection with the hundreds of thousands of people living with them, they were able to not only make the pyramids a reality, but create them so cleverly, that in 2016 we still marvel at their construction today. Even still we're arguing over how they were really built.

It wasn't just man-power that built the pyramids, and it wasn't one single persons genius innovation. It was the result of gathering all the brightest minds and strongest people into a network that could build ideas upon one another. It was networks upon networks of thousands of little pieces coming together to make that something we still see as truly marvelous.

It was a network then... just like the internet is today.

knowledge is power

Centuries ago the process of understanding the simplest equations could take a life time. Today children can master algebra before 5 and be off to learn astrophysics before 15. The internet today allows anyone to find and posses any kind of information at the click of a button. Anyone, with a simple, everyday, internet-enabled device, can be instantly connected with over 70% of the worlds most complex knowledge. That's real power, for everyone.

A world of geniuses

Imagine a world where instead of a single Einstein, we had hundreds of thousands. What would the world be able to create or endure? What if we even dial it back a little, and think of what it would be like if our one Einstein just had the internet!

A world like this may not be as far off as we think. With the speed in at which our modern day scientists and mentally gifted individuals can share data and ideas, our technological breakthroughs are happening even faster and faster! 

The future

The internet has no bounds for what is possible in our lifetime. Anyone can instantly speak to, learn from, or connect with anyone else in moments. Its exciting to think of what will be possible even as early as tomorrow. Anyone, in a single day can become the next world leader, top scientist or celebrity. All someone with the internet would have to do, is decide to want and then do it. Lets just hope they all decide to become scientists over celebrities! What a time to be alive.

-Kyle

Lets start with a look at the word "bandwidth." Lets change the word "band" to "pipe" and we're left with "pipe-width." If you think of bandwidth as the diameter of a pipe, its easy to imagine that a larger pipe could allow more stuff to flow through it. Having more bandwidth means you have a larger pipe to push and pull data through. The picture to the right really shows how much a difference between the average cable bandwidth of 60Mbps is compared to a 1Gbps connection.

If you've ever been watching a youtube video that loads so slow you can barely watch it at all, its easy to see why bandwidth can be so important. Having a crazy fast internet connection can actually feel pretty empowering too. Downloading a full hour long Blu-ray movie in under a minute is a technological marvel to behold. Is speed like that actually necessary though? Probably not all the time. Some people may only use the internet to check their email, and others for competitive gaming. For simple web browsing you may not see a difference in speed beyond 10Mbps, until you go to download something that is. Competitive gamers can see a difference all the way up to 100Mbps. If your gaming against someone with a faster connection, sadly the tie will normally go to your opponent.

   When you signed up for the internet you may now have, you may have noticed it said the words "up to" when talking about what speeds you would receive. Now that we know what bandwidth means, we can easily break down why it says that.

   Since there is only so much space in the "pipe," while other devices are using the same lines, the available flow has to go in different directions aside from your own. If you're the only one using the internet in your area, you may actually get the max speeds advertised by your internet service provider, if the whole neighborhood is online however, probably far below it.

   Thankfully, there's hope for us! Companies like Google are working to change the internet to how it should be. Inexpensive, fast as heck and easy to work with. The big names have a monopoly on the internet now so progress is slow, but those of us who are lucky enough to have gotten an alternative internet provider in our areas can tell you it's amazing and changes the way you use the internet.

According to our friends at digital trends in their ask an expert article, there are 3 different kinds of Wi-Fi attacks to protect ourselves from. Man in the middle attacks, Malware and Wi-Fi sniffing. The article goes on to say that with relative ease, entry level computer users can not only see where you're going and what you're doing online, but access the files on your computer and in the most extreme cases go on to watch and listen through your webcam! Now obviously these are VERY extreme and rare cases that articles like this will often use at times to sensationalize and hype up their own security software... but they actually do have a point. 

Windows, Apple, linux and android all fundamentally speak in the same or a similar plain language that other computers can translate enough for us humans to see and understand. There are even computer operating systems that were built with the sole purpose of "penetration testing" or its more blunt title, hacking. Operating systems like Kali Linux make cracking home routers, even with WPA2 authentication enabled, possible for someone with moderate to advanced computer networking knowledge. If you have a home modem/router with password protection, your security measures have probably just been keeping others off of your network. As long as no body can connect to your network, your files and data are behind your password protected walls. However, if someone reveals your password or finds his way into the walls of your home network. Havoc and damage can at an instant be happening inside your own computers without you even knowing. Hiding behind our home router walls as our network security is no longer enough. Which should make hotel and coffee shop hot spots a nightmare.... right? 

VPN choices without making it complicated

thatoneprivacysite.net is an amazing resource to use to see the differences in the different kinds of VPN and encryption methods. I included a link in the picture to the right. Click it to check it out. Getting into that can be very confusing because its a lot to take in, especially you're new to this kind of stuff. If you take the time you can find yourself everything from a free VPN you can start using right now, to a VPN with a little bit of a price tag but doesn't slow your connection speed at all.

Enter the world of encryption

     Encryption as defined is a simple thing to understand. Encrypting data is basically setting a password for each individual bit of data. New Computers can encrypt data using enormously long numbers, which can (even when given a hint) take another computer years to decipher. By 2 computers agreeing on a set of enormously long numbers before sending data you can create what techs refer to as an encrypted "tunnel." After a strong encrypted tunnel has been set up, even if someone was on the same network as you and they went to watch every individual bit of data you sent go by, it would still take them decades to decipher any of it.  The downside is your sending a lot more data down the lines when adding the encryption, so internet speeds sometimes suffer drastically. 

     Encrypting data sounds like a complicated process, but I found multiple methods of creating an encrypted tunnel that were free, easy to use/setup and fast enough to not make any noticeable difference in my internet speeds or experience. 

Anti Virus and browsing protection

A VPN hides you from the prying eyes, an anti virus program keeps the bugs from being brought back home with you when you go out and visit new places. The worst viruses can hide on your machine posing as other files. They can cause damage to your machine, steal and transmit your data or sometimes worse.