Networking Memes

When you're working from home and spot an unauthorized device on your network, only to realize it's just a spider chilling on your ceiling-mounted WiFi access point. The little guy's literally web developing in the most literal sense possible. Nothing says "security vulnerability" quite like an eight-legged freelancer who didn't sign the NDA. At least he's working on the frontend—specifically, the front end of your Ubiquiti device. Hope he's not packet sniffing or worse, building his own mesh network.

The entire internet is basically a Jenga tower held together by duct tape, prayers, and a few corporations we pretend to trust. At the very bottom, literally underwater, sharks are chomping on submarine cables because apparently even marine life has beef with our infrastructure. What's beautiful here is how the whole stack—from ASML making the chips, through Intel/AMD/Nvidia silicon, up past the Linux Foundation, DNS, AWS, Cloudflare, all the way to that precariously balanced mess of "modern digital infrastructure" with WASM and V8—depends on cables that sharks find delicious. Meanwhile, unpaid open source devs are basically holding the entire thing together with their bare hands while AI and Microsoft do... whatever they're doing up there. Fun fact: Sharks actually DO bite undersea internet cables, likely because the electromagnetic fields mess with their sensory organs. Google had to wrap their cables in Kevlar-like material. So yeah, your 404 error might literally be because a great white got hungry. The internet runs on vibes and shark-resistant coating.

UDP vs TCP but make it wildly inappropriate. The left side shows UDP doing its thing—just yeeting that dick pic into the void with zero confirmation, no handshake, no nothing. Classic fire-and-forget protocol energy. Meanwhile TCP on the right is out here establishing a full three-way handshake before sending anything, complete with consent verification, acknowledgments for every message, and a proper connection termination with FIN packets. It's the networking equivalent of asking "may I?" before every single action. The best part? TCP even acknowledges the compliment AND the thank you. That's some next-level reliable delivery right there. UDP could never—it doesn't even know if its packet arrived, let alone whether anyone appreciated it. This is what they mean when they say "connection-oriented vs connectionless protocols" in your networking textbook, just with significantly more inappropriate metaphors than your professor used.

TCP is that overprotective parent who walks you through every step, confirms you got the message, and makes sure nothing gets lost. Meanwhile, UDP is out here just launching packets into the void like "good luck, buddy!" and moving on with its life. TCP does all the heavy lifting with its 3-way handshake, sequencing, acknowledgments, and retransmissions—basically the networking equivalent of sending a certified letter with tracking. UDP? Just yeeting data packets across the network with zero regard for whether they arrive or in what order. No handshake, no acknowledgment, no second chances. Fire and forget, baby. This is why video streaming and online gaming use UDP—because who cares if you lose a frame or two? But when you're downloading files or loading web pages, you better believe TCP is there making sure every single byte arrives intact. Choose your protocol based on whether you value reliability or just vibes.

Dial-up internet connection dialogs were the loading screens of the ancient times. You'd literally have to input a phone number, hear the modem screech like a dying robot, and pray nobody picked up the landline while you were downloading a 2MB file. The best part? That "Save password for anyone who uses this computer" option was basically the original zero-trust security model... except backwards. Nothing says "cybersecurity" like storing ISP credentials in plaintext for the entire household to accidentally nuke your connection mid-download. If you remember this screen, you also remember the existential dread of someone yelling "I NEED TO USE THE PHONE" while you were 95% done downloading a Winamp skin.