Entertainment

UMass Professor Explains the Internet in 5 Levels of Difficulty | WIRED

The internet is the most technically complex system humanity has ever built. Jim Kurose, Professor at UMass Amherst, has been challenged to explain the internet to 5 different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert. Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►► Listen to the Get WIRED…

Published

on

The internet is the most technically complex system humanity has ever built. Jim Kurose, Professor at UMass Amherst, has been challenged to explain the internet to 5 different people; a child, a teen, a college student, a grad student, and an expert.

Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►►
Listen to the Get WIRED podcast ►►
Want more WIRED? Get the magazine ►►

Follow WIRED:

Instagram ►►
Twitter ►►
Facebook ►►

Also, check out the free WIRED channel on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.

ABOUT WIRED
WIRED is where tomorrow is realized.

88 Comments

  1. Fares AlHawaj

    November 23, 2022 at 6:51 pm

    The hair, the glasses, and the blue shirt all make him look like he works at genius bar. The only difference is he’s actually genius.

  2. floppy1205

    November 23, 2022 at 6:53 pm

    oh my god how did i live up to today without knowing about the existence of this man ?! happily brilliant

  3. R Age

    November 23, 2022 at 7:02 pm

    The grad student should look into PKI for the IoT devices. Then you wouldn’t need to constantly setup when you move.

  4. vipahman

    November 23, 2022 at 7:10 pm

    It’s all BS because my 5G network is as slow (and sometimes slower) than my old 4G network.

  5. SHAKIYAgotDreams2

    November 23, 2022 at 7:13 pm

    Good stuff

  6. Roelof Hoeksema

    November 23, 2022 at 7:13 pm

    If you want to learn more: I can highly recommend typing his name into youtube. He has a quite extensive series explaining the internet in more detail!

  7. Marge Foyle

    November 23, 2022 at 7:16 pm

    Excellent!

  8. Danita Jaye

    November 23, 2022 at 7:23 pm

    wonderful! The speed of change is amazing. I’ve been in IT since 1980, and you can’t even fathom really how very far things have come. It started changing, and then changes happened faster and faster, exponentially. I’m happy to be a newly retired developer, lol. Enough learning new language/processes, etc., every year. 🙂

  9. Orale Perros

    November 23, 2022 at 7:51 pm

    I’m in love with the college guy. He seems nice, kind, smart and probably has huge D.

  10. Jeric Brual

    November 23, 2022 at 8:06 pm

    The way he described the internet to Skylar was actually REALLY good. I’m impressed. Kinda surprised Nicholas didn’t know about ARPANET, especially as a comp sci student. Also, Nicholas probably watched this video when he mentioned the “seven keys to the internet” –

  11. Home Wall

    November 23, 2022 at 8:27 pm

    The Internet was not centrally planned, even if government did some early research, it didn’t plan out any of what the Internet is today.

  12. Ben Carlson

    November 23, 2022 at 8:43 pm

    The undergrad college student is annoying… I feel like he doesn’t really understand anything about the networks at all

  13. Ursula Sydney Rexford-Haase

    November 23, 2022 at 8:46 pm

    Cool 🎉

  14. Evy Guo

    November 23, 2022 at 9:04 pm

    Wow!!!

  15. JERMƵ

    November 23, 2022 at 9:11 pm

    I wish humanity was more worried about technology development instead of a worthless state election

  16. mibber121

    November 23, 2022 at 9:15 pm

    THE THUMBNAIL LOOKS LIKE A PIPELINE MEME

  17. Nicholas Azrilyan

    November 23, 2022 at 9:44 pm

    THE 7 PEOPLE🤣:

  18. Janet F

    November 23, 2022 at 10:06 pm

    Prof. Kurose is the best listener I’ve witnessed in ages.👏👍✌

  19. Donovan Simmons

    November 23, 2022 at 10:10 pm

    I love how I learned the most at level 1 with the child for some reason 🤯

  20. Dokter Kattenbakvulling

    November 23, 2022 at 11:02 pm

    I still don’t understand the flattening or convergence thing. Can someone explain with an example?

  21. Jeff Jefferson

    November 23, 2022 at 11:13 pm

    5G has much lower latency? Good for gamers then, and driverless cars.

  22. lowbudgetmic

    November 23, 2022 at 11:46 pm

    U Mass… Zoo Mass!! 😮

  23. Shantaram Nimbhore

    November 24, 2022 at 12:03 am

    WIRED please bring more Educational Episodes like these I loved it.💙

  24. Orion That Man

    November 24, 2022 at 12:04 am

    The conversation with the grad student started to sound like gibberish ngl 😂

  25. Dee Ca.

    November 24, 2022 at 12:53 am

    I would love to take one of his classes.

  26. mgonzalez.88

    November 24, 2022 at 2:10 am

    Jesus I’m dumb

  27. Thomas Schoeck

    November 24, 2022 at 2:59 am

    Hearing about the number seven reminded me of the OSI Reference Model.

  28. Josh J

    November 24, 2022 at 3:33 am

    I’m a network engineer and I wanted to put here a cool little bit of information for you all.
    The internet mostly runs on a protocol called TCP (transmission control protocol)
    This protocol is part of the 7 layers of the OSI (open systems interconnect) model.
    the layers are 1. physical 2. data 3. network 4. transport 5. session 6. presentation 7. application
    When I was first learning about these layers I came up with the perfect acronym to remember it and i’ve never forgotten 25 years on.

    “People Don’t Need To See People Anymore”
    Physical data network transport session presentation application
    PDNTSPA
    Because of the internet – people don’t need to see people anymore.

  29. Worf

    November 24, 2022 at 4:17 am

    Isn’t the internet just a series of tubes?

  30. Enjoyer Regret

    November 24, 2022 at 4:37 am

    W

  31. Johari green

    November 24, 2022 at 4:43 am

    As a Network Engineer, this video is gold!

  32. noodles6669

    November 24, 2022 at 5:20 am

    I love scrubbing towards the end of these videos and truly seeing that I don’t understand anything of what they’re saying.

    • Tyler O'Neill

      November 24, 2022 at 10:18 am

      Sometimes I do this by reading Wikipedia articles about upper level math I don’t understand, it’s great

  33. Lazarus Blackwell

    November 24, 2022 at 8:01 am

    People know about the internet as much as they need to know.

  34. Pushpraj Yadav

    November 24, 2022 at 8:28 am

    Make a episode on economics explained in 5 levels ✍️🙏

  35. Flz Huang

    November 24, 2022 at 8:40 am

    20:14 GFW …. cross the wall we can reach the world

  36. asksearchknock

    November 24, 2022 at 9:07 am

    10:44 – it is actually the number seven… seven people control the global DNS master keys

  37. Tim Wesemeyer

    November 24, 2022 at 11:15 am

    I don’t know about you but that Knock Knock joke was such a nice analogy and really stresses what a good communication skill this Prof has.

  38. M vSdV

    November 24, 2022 at 11:48 am

    The Internet is not something you just dump something on, it’s not a big truck. It’s, it’s a series of tubes. TUBES!

  39. Brian Bergin

    November 24, 2022 at 12:14 pm

    With all due respect to your last guest, 5G is not about coverage. If anything, 5G is significantly less coverage than previous generations especially when you get to 5GUW.

  40. yash garg

    November 24, 2022 at 12:48 pm

    Literally spent last night reading Dr. Kurose textbook yesterday for my Endsems today, and here he is on wired. amazing man

  41. ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN

    November 24, 2022 at 1:17 pm

    I like how as he moves up the levels it’s less of him explaining and more asking questions and listening.

  42. Jan Kadera

    November 24, 2022 at 1:34 pm

    Level 2
    Q: how is it so fast?
    A: it’s like a route system and there are intersections…

    Just like when I was in college. Brilliant and useful answer…just not to my question.
    And then in the test: if router A have a throughput of X and line B have a length of Y, what is the reliability of your neighbours HDD?

  43. LeetHaxington

    November 24, 2022 at 1:39 pm

    True hard mode: explain to a senator what the internet is

  44. LeetHaxington

    November 24, 2022 at 1:42 pm

    That’s clearly no school kid. She’s smarter than most Comcast engineers

  45. ThisIsMegaSushi

    November 24, 2022 at 4:33 pm

    Sorry not Sorry, How to explain to a 5 years old in 10 sec: Internet is a network and language between compters to talk with other compters and gives each other things such as movies, music tracks, documents and web pages. BAM it took this professor almost 1 min until he says “internet is a network to exchange information”. Next stop – explaning to a 5 yo abstract meta comcept information .

  46. Jehu Michelo

    November 24, 2022 at 6:05 pm

    This man must’ve definitely taught kids before

  47. מנחם

    November 24, 2022 at 6:12 pm

    Solid guy!

  48. Kelvin Klopper

    November 24, 2022 at 8:58 pm

    Great video, very detailed but that compsci student doesn’t seem to have a clue about what he’s talking about.

  49. James Stec

    November 25, 2022 at 12:05 am

    Ack! A knock knock joke? What a syn!

  50. Mariachee Bandidos

    November 25, 2022 at 1:29 am

    the internet: invented by the US government, given to the world for free

  51. Maximilian Kuechen

    November 25, 2022 at 2:59 am

    I’m a UMass Amherst student and I’ve taken classes with Jim. He’s a amazing professor!

  52. Anshul Singh

    November 25, 2022 at 3:01 am

    Welp time to sign up for his course next semester

  53. shadebug

    November 25, 2022 at 3:44 am

    I worry about some of the things that were surprising that final year undergrad

  54. DJ_ G-Rod

    November 25, 2022 at 4:19 am

    Great video thanks for the upload!

  55. Ian Lewis

    November 25, 2022 at 5:08 am

    Here we go Jim

  56. pkaulf

    November 25, 2022 at 8:01 am

    The discussion on SDN was good. As someone who does it in their day job, I would strongly recommend anyone looking to get into a networking career to have SDN knowledge/experience.

  57. Jonathan Stewart

    November 25, 2022 at 12:37 pm

    They lost me at high school level.

  58. Mike Karloff

    November 25, 2022 at 2:18 pm

    Lol what do they teach at NYU if a senior CS major doesnt know what a DNS is

  59. vmcampos

    November 25, 2022 at 8:17 pm

    10:18 invitation to get hacked 😅

  60. Matt

    November 25, 2022 at 9:24 pm

    Everyone knows that the internet is just a series of tubes

  61. Rebel

    November 25, 2022 at 11:33 pm

    No way she’s 15

  62. Brucifer

    November 26, 2022 at 12:21 am

    The six year old had a better idea of BGP or even OSPF than the teen when she alluded to redundancy. LOL. Level 3 seemed lost at the end in regards to contention ratios. It’s amazing because I’ve got a three year old nephew and I feel like by the time he’s my age, he’s gonna be way far ahead of where I am now, just due to the technology he’s grown up with.

    • j

      November 28, 2022 at 8:15 am

      funny isnt it because the 9 year old has been around it longer, even the 15yo probably didn’t have internet access until she was 10-12

  63. sydney stratis

    November 26, 2022 at 2:47 am

    I took Jim’s class last semester! Lovely human and amazing teacher. So happy to see him on WIRED

    • Maxim Desyatov

      November 29, 2022 at 6:29 am

      Which class was it? I can’t seem to find any of his classes at UMass.

    • sydney stratis

      November 30, 2022 at 1:58 am

      @Maxim Desyatov info 203: a networked world

  64. Andrew Tan

    November 26, 2022 at 5:45 am

    He’s currently one of my Professors, kind of cool seeing him here.

  65. Tony Patrick

    November 26, 2022 at 7:21 pm

    When the undergrad said “7 keys” I immediately figured he was conflating the 7 layers of the OSI model with something else. Surprised the professor didn’t also immediately hear 7 and go to the OSI model.

  66. Alex Zimmerman

    November 27, 2022 at 4:38 am

    Wooooah I go here

  67. Ray Osas

    November 27, 2022 at 6:29 am

    Dr. Kurose is a Takumi in network world. If you are studying in UMass, I recommend you to take his INFO203 as a network intro course.

  68. LoneStar Not

    November 27, 2022 at 2:47 pm

    @Tony Patrick, yeah, “7 keys” seemed a lead-in to … maybe Prof.Kurose didn’t want to leave the very general audience.

  69. Eurafrican85

    November 27, 2022 at 3:16 pm

    Wish this professor could teach me everything. He’s awesome

  70. Mikaela Bowler

    November 28, 2022 at 5:10 am

    This was cool to watch as a UMass alum 🙂 Clarifying question: ‘flattening’ of the internet is bad, right? Good in the sense that you might have to jump fewer networks / speeds might be faster, but bad because then ownership is less decentralized?
    Also, would love to see the two experts explain VPNs!

  71. SALESPRODUCTIONS

    November 28, 2022 at 4:22 pm

    Skylar ( the 1st girl ) already understands the internet – on her own – and is very bright. She deduced the point of it right away – ( multiple nodes in case of one not working ) and even understood conservation of energy / time and productivity goals. She likely understands the internet WAY better than the majority of the population. ( I will also point out that one of the original goals was to create something that had so many nodes on it that people could still communicate in the event of a catastrophe ) See DARPA etc . . You could also see the interviewer laughing and being a bit shocked at her deep level of understanding she worked out on her own and mentioned right away.

  72. Thomas Lisankie

    November 28, 2022 at 8:24 pm

    Fantastic video.

  73. James Reina

    November 28, 2022 at 9:58 pm

    grad student is going places

  74. Kevin Luo

    November 28, 2022 at 10:41 pm

    That college guy was talking about an HAI video

  75. theLUCKYdude17

    November 30, 2022 at 1:06 am

    me watching this instead of lectures for my networks class 🙂

  76. Yuri M

    November 30, 2022 at 1:41 am

    he lost me on the first level. i not good at things

  77. Thorvald Spear

    November 30, 2022 at 1:45 am

    The child was more observant than many adults I know 💀

  78. zoomy

    November 30, 2022 at 2:16 am

    I thought i was wrong when seeing the thumbnail, but i just remembered that my professor used Mr. Kurose’s lecture videos in our class when he was absent, salute 👍🏻

  79. SANGAM X GHIMIRE

    November 30, 2022 at 8:56 am

    Awesome Video
    Keep on uploading educational videos like this

  80. Ahmad Mukhlis

    November 30, 2022 at 10:15 am

    The professor sure is outstanding but Skylar is indeed very smart kid for that age

  81. Andrew Ward

    November 30, 2022 at 4:02 pm

    Fourth time saying that the editors of this video need to understand the topics better if they’re going to make intelligent cuts between conversations. They’re always cutting the experts off before they’ve properly explained their point.

  82. coolbluesman

    November 30, 2022 at 5:11 pm

    It’s funny how college undergrad level is the same as it was in the late 90s. Back then you’d know the basic nuts and bolts of the network, provided you were paying the slightest bit of attention, simply because it was in its infancy, and there was a bulk of highly visible information about how the system worked. Kids today haven’t been told about what’s under the hood.

  83. Deborah Camacho

    November 30, 2022 at 9:03 pm

    Amazing discussion. I appreciate the information. My skills are dated, but I understood the essence of each discussion. Thanks.

  84. Amanda Wong

    November 30, 2022 at 9:05 pm

    Jen seems so cool

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending

Exit mobile version