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Research Papers On The History Of The Internet
Research Papers On The History Of The Internet
Research Papers On The History Of The Internet
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History and Development of the Internet
The internet is a global computer network connecting millions and millions of users throughout the world. (Leiner, 2). It has become one of the fastest growing forms of communication today. (Marshall, 1).
The Internet started as a Defense Department Cold War experiment in the 1950’s. (Academic American, 225). The government needed a way to relay information between tanks and headquarters so the APRA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) sought a way to let signals from the battlefield reach a headquarters computer using satellites and radio signals. At the same time the command posts of the nation were located deep underground in mountains in fear of nuclear war. (Diamond, 3). Paul Baran, working for the U.S. Air Force, developed a network that could reroute itself around damage caused by the impact of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile by using "redundancy of connectivity". This meant that in the event of a break in the network the server would re-route the information in an alternate path through a new technique called "packet switching". Packet Switching is a means of breaking up the message being sent into small packets which carry enough information to seek out its destination and sending them out separately towards the destination server. The message after being broken up would take separate routes to the destination and then be re-assembled by the computer at the server where the message was being sent. This was good because with more than one route for information to travel on, the enemy did not have one central point to target their attack to break the lines of communication and in the event of some break in the line information could still travel through. (Diamond, 4).
This all interested the APRA enough to fund the research and development of an experimental computer network with hopes of demonstrating the feasibility of remote computer operation from the battlefield. Vinton Cerf also called "The Father of the Internet", a graduate student working at UCLA began to take interest in the 4 node APRAnet, and in 1973 developed the first TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) software. (Leiner, 4). TCP/IP software converts messages into streams, transmits them acro...
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...e the controversial newsgroups (until this point net. had held everything). Some systems had refused to carry the controversial newsgroups like net.rec.drugs so the ".alt" (alternative) hierarchy was created. (Diamond, 12)
After the development and merger of APRAnet and usenet the internet began to grow exponentially. (Diamond, 11). The internet evolved from a small government project to the fastest growing form of communication it is today. (Blom, 2)
Bibliography
"Internet." Academic American Encyclopedia. 1996.
Diamond, Edwin and Stephen Bates. "The Ancient History of the Internet."
American Heritage. Oct. 1995: pp. 34+. In Social Issues Resource Series, Inc. History- Article #17.
Blom, Eric. "Ruts in Rural Info Highway." Maine Sunday Telegram (Portland, ME). CD
Newsbank. 12 April 1998.
Mashall, Joshua Micah. "Will Free Speech Get Tangled in the Net?" American Prospect.
Jan./Feb. 1998: pp. 46-50. In Social Issues Resource Series, Inc. Internet,
Censorship- Article #1.
Leiner, Barry. "A Brief History of the Internet." 17 December 1998.
http://www.isoc.org/internet-history/brief.html
...he Oxford Journals, The Journal of American History, Volume 93, Issue 1.2013. Accessed November 20, 2013. http://jah.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/1/290.extract.
“Women’s History in America Presented by Women’s International Center.” Women’s International Center. n.d.Women’s International Center. 5 Mar. 2010 .
1900-1930," Journal of American History; June 1996, Vol. 83 Issue 1 Web. 26 May 2015.
... Conference.” Reader’s Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991. Online. Internet. Available at HTTP: http://www.historychannel.com/. 23 Sept 2001.
The World Wide Web started as an idea that focused around the government’s need to communicate if there was a real war. In 1964 the Cold War was at its peak, the Advanced Researched Projects Agency, or ARPA began researching and developing a way to get computers to “communicate with each other,” this is how it all started (The Internet's History and Development). The government scientists who were, “developing networking technology in the 1960's knew that what they were building would be far bigger than themselves; nobody, however, could have predicted the explosion in Internet access and interest in the past several years” (The Internet’s History and Development).
Phillips, Charles. "December 29, 1890." American History 40.5 (2005): 16. MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.
Encyclopedia of American Social History Vol. 1 Ed. By : Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliot J. Gorn, and Peter W. Williams. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons - 1993
The history of the internet shows that the internet is not a new medium. The internet was initially created in the 1960's to as a way for the United States to stay connected in case of a nuclear fallout due to the possible consequences of the Cold War. F...
The Internet has become a major tool for communication and access to information for over two and half billion people (Wright 121). Although Internet has become an unavoidable reality that is consuming our planet in a web of information. This process is being shaped by our actions and choices which ultimately drives us together (Deibert 11). Nowadays China has over 538 million netizens, the world’s largest online community (Feng & Guo 335).
The Internet is a global network connecting millions of personal, institutional and company computers. The number of computers used by the internet is growing rapidly. The United States is connected with over 100 countries worldwide and linked together to exchange of data, news and opinions. The Internet is decentralized design. This means that there isn't just one computer that stores all of the information from the Internet. There are many independent host servers located throughout the US and the world that store the information made available to the global Internet community.
Since the development of the Internet in late 1980s, communication has changed enormously. The Internet has altered the lives of people in the world in a way that was never imagined before. As little as a decade ago, if someone tried to explain the Internet and World Wide Web, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Computers were just beginning to become popular and few individuals realized the capacity of one PC, let alone the power of a network of electronic technology. By linking together computers, users could remotely access others on the network, share information, and send electronic mail as easily as pushing a button. Millions of people with shared interests, exchange information and build communities through Web sites, email and instant-messaging software.
The internet is a total of mediums which are connected between them with channels of communication. The internet is actually an internet after it connects to smaller networks of many countries. The internet rouses the computer and the world of the communications like nothing else before. The invention of the computer, of the telephone, of the telegraph etc, set the stage for this unprecedented completion of faculties. The internet becomes right away a world capable radio broadcast, a mechanism for the distribution of information and a means for the cooperation and the interaction between the individuals and their computers, being indifferent to the geographic place.
The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The Internet enables communication and transmission of data between computers at different locations. The Internet is a computer application that connects tens of thousands of interconnected computer networks that include 1.7 million host computers around the world. The basis of connecting all these computers together is by the use of ordinary telephone wires. Users are then directly joined to other computer users at there own will for a small connection fee per month. The connection conveniently includes unlimited access to over a million web sites twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There are many reasons why the Internet is important these reasons include: The net adapts to damage and error, data travels at 2/3 the speed of light on copper and fiber, the internet provides the same functionality to everyone, the net is the fastest growing technology ever, the net promotes freedom of speech, the net is digital, and can correct errors. Connecting to the Internet cost the taxpayer little or nothing, since each node was independent, and had to handle its own financing and its own technical requirements.
On October 29, 1969 Lawrence Roberts had created the first two nodes to travel between UCLA and SRI International. This project was originally conducted under the Advanced Research Projects Agency to counteract the USSR’s launch of the Sputnik. After the creation it had been called the Arpanet, and would be used specifically for government networks until the early 90’s. In 1990 the World Wide Web had been created as an online public network for everyday civilians to use. At least three decades later the web has grown to include over a million sites, while maintaining the original governments use to maintain a network between locations.
So who was the genius behind the information superhighway, you ask? Well let’s take a step back to the sixties, a decade when Cold War tension caused nationwide fear of nuclear warfare. Early in the decade, two groups of researchers, privately owned RAND Corporation (America’s leading nuclear war think-tank) and federal agency ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), grappled with a bizarre strategic mystery: in the event of nuclear war, how could political and military officials communicate successfully? It was obvious that a network, linking cities and military bases, would be necessary. But the advent of the atomic bomb made switches, wiring, and command posts for this network highly vulnerable. A “nuclear-safe” network would need to operate with missing links and without central authority.