History of the Internet

A Free Net

The Internet has revolutionized the communication world in unprecedented ways.

It allows worldwide broadcasting, global distribution of information, and it is a medium

for the interaction and communication of individuals without regard for geographic

location.

Thirty years ago, America?s principal Cold War think-tank, the RAND

Corporation, faced a strategic dilemma: how could the United States authorities

successfully communicate after a nuclear war? The solution was a network of individual

nodes, computer units that would send and receive information in a random manner. If

one area of nodes were destroyed the message would bounce between the others. After

the Cold War ended, and the threat of nuclear war subsided, the potential for this

?internet? was realized. Of course, in the beginning, it was small and difficult to make use

of, but as more corporations and different social groups began to possess powerful

computers, the network grew and became more useful. As with the growth of fax

machines in the early 1990?s, the Internet was only practical if someone else had one to

communicate with.

Today, the Internet has moved out of its original base in the military and research

institutions and into schools and learning centers, public libraries and commercial sectors.

It is now a vast system of millions of computers, not only corporate and military, but

personal as well. The Internet can be used for the purpose of gathering information and

communicating. The Internet enables users to surpass the distance barrier and

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communicate with anyone on the face of the planet, provided that they have access to a

computer.

According to recent research, the world?s Internet population is only expanding.

By the year 2002, it is estimated that 490 million people will have Internet access. At the

end of this year, the United States will have 135.7 million users - that?s 36.2% of the total

world users (CyberAtlas).

Lately there has been another addition to the usefulness of the Internet, the sales

of products and services. These transactions are known as e-commerce, the ?e? standing

for electronic. In 1998 a three-year moratorium banned the taxing of Internet use and on-

line spending. Currently, a new law is looking to extend this ban another five years.

There are currently 7,500 state and local tax systems throughout the United

States. These numbers could be significantly increased if state and local governments were

able to tax e-commerce. On-line businesses would be buried in costly paperwork trying to

meet the terms of conflicting tax clauses. Under the current system, it is difficult to

determine the locality from which an order was placed and it is unclear where an Internet