Overview

The Internet is one of the defining technologies of the modern age. As such, there are many sources, both digital and print, that attempt to educate their audiences about the Internet. However, many of these sources have critical flaws that prevent them from effectively reaching the target audience of Inside The Wires. Indeed, a combination of writing style, presentation, assumption of prior knowledge, and motivation make many purported sources of information about the Internet inappropriate for informing educated, non-technical individuals about the workings of the Internet. Below is a brief survey of a few of the major categories of these resources.

An Axe to Grind - Politically Motivated Information

Because the Internet is at the center of many political debates, political interests have begun to influence the information available about the Internet. One direct example of this comes from Internet policy advocacy websites. In order to convince their audience to support their agenda, they provide some information as to how the Internet works. However, this information is usually incomplete, slanted, an innaccurate. Indeed, by selectively omitting certain information, many policy advocacy websites can leave their readers with holes in their knowledge that they are unaware of. For example, by neglecting to describe the ways in which routers handle congestion, Network Neutrality advocacy websites can sidestep one of the biggest advantages of non-neutral routing.

The Reader as Engineer - Catering to a Technical Audience

The Internet is, by its very nature, a complex piece of technology. Indeed, it took many years to develop. Thus, many of the most important documents about the Internet were never intended to be read by the general public. An extreme case, shown to the right, is RFC 791, the technical document providing the exact specification for the Internet Protocol. While it is indeed the most authoritative piece on the subject, it assumes significant technical background, methodically defines the most tedious details, and does not present its subject in the broader context of what we know as the Internet today. Furthermore, many sites which attempt to provide a more gentle introduction to the Internet still proceed under the assumption that the reader is an engineer who eventually intends to work with the Internet on a technical level. This is not what the target audience of Inside The Wires is looking for. For example, someone who merely wants to get an idea of how DNS works probably does not want to learn how to set up their own DNS server and format the configuration file.

The Reader as Buffoon - Catering to the Lowest Common Denominator

Many sites and books that are indeed aimed at a non-technical audience have serious shortcomings that make them unappealing and inadequate for the target audience of Inside The Wires. First, many of them focus more or less entirely on how to use the Internet and give little explanation as to how it works. Shown on the right, The Internet For Dummies promises to teach readers how to use MySpace and post videos on YouTube, but does not appear to contain much information about the communication network that is actually the Internet. Moreover, many sources like the one above cater to the lowest common denominator and write in a condescending manner. This can justifiably offend an educated reader with a non-technical background, so Inside The Wires has the potential to offer an alternative for disaffected readers of such resources.

Legitimate Competition - Getting Things at Least Somewhat Right

There are several resources available, both on the Internet and in print, that do a respectable job at presenting the workings of the Internet in a straightforward but not condescending manner. These form the core of the legitimate competition to Inside The Wires. In general, this site will attempt to compete only with other online content, since printed materials are not free and thus are in a somewhat different competitive sphere. While several other websites get many things right, none of them are perfect. For example, How Stuff Works' guide to the Internet, shown on the right, does a good job presenting relevant material in a straightforward manner. However, there are several aspects that could be improved. First, the site layout is visually distracting, making it hard to concentrate on the content. Moreover, it doesn't seek to present the content in the broader context of issues that are important today. Inside The Wires will attempt to bring in issues like Network Neutrality and Digital Copyright when they relate to the content, giving readers a more holistic understanding of the Internet as it exists today.