The internet and the idiom:

One year after I was born, (to the month) the internet was born.

Over the course of my life, the internet has gone from something nobody knew about, to something Filipino 12 year-old's are teaching their grandparents how to use.

Twenty years ago, Tim Berners-Lee saw the internet created "on his desk" in Geneva Switzerland.

He wrote this article about where the internet has come, and about where it needs to go. He had six basic premises about the internet, that: Universality is the foundation; Open standards drive innovation; Keep the web separate from the internet; Electronic human rights; No snooping; and Linking to the future.

Now, I'm not going to describe the entire article:you can go here if you wan to read it.

What I am going to do is describe the part of the article that I found most interesting: Electronic human rights.

To give a little perspective on how important this issue is, we should consider the influence of social networking in the recent protests and revolutions across the middle east. Sites like Facebook Twitter, and a host of others were used as communication channels for protesters to either publicly, or privately (and thus without fear of repercussion) publish their views.

The ability for people across the world to express themselves is a huge step for democracy. People are able to challenge their government to do better, and are able to connect with people who are running for office but are shut out of the state-run media. This is part of the reason Berners-Lee says that access to the internet has been deemed a fundamental human right by the UN.

That people should have access to the internet is vital. While we may not like everything that is on the internet, we sill must recognize the good that can come from it. Protecting access to the internet, and improving wireless internet infrastructure in developing nations will result in a better educated, and better informed populace.

The internet holds all kinds of untold possibilities.
It is so new that we still haven't seen all that can be done with it.

I'm excited to see what happens over the next twenty years.