Bootstrapping JISA—Letter from the Editors-in-Chief
Fábio Kon, Gordon S. Blair · Journal of Internet Services and Applications · 2010
It was less than 20 years ago when the Internet began to become available to the common citizens.Within this short period, it became ubiquitous in the lives of a significant part of the human population, affecting the way we seek, receive, access, and produce information, the way we consume goods, the way we interact with other people, and the way we think.The young generations love the Internet and have difficulties imagining a life without it.The way they learn, have fun, and love is influenced by the network.Older generations remember very well how the world was before it; but, for them, the benefits it brought are clear.In many aspects, life is more interesting with the Internet.Nevertheless, the Internet is also a reason for worries, mostly with respect to privacy and security, the difficulty to filter relevant information in an endless ocean of data, the possibility of cybercrimes, and even psychological and social problems.Among the major challenges the Internet faces today are the threats to privacy and the difficulty in reaching a wider portion of the world population.According to recent studies, more than 2/3 of humanity have no access whatsoever to the Internet.To produce the Internet as we know today, many scientific and technological advances were needed, benefiting from multiple areas of Computer Science, including Computer Theory,