Sample essay topic, essay writing: The History Of The Internet - 1077 words

The History of The Internet Imagine talking about the latest elections with someone three thousandmiles away without receiving a tremendous phone bill. Or sending a letter to afriend or relative and having it arrive one second later. How would it feel toknow that any source of information is at your fingertips at the press of abutton? All of these are possible and more with a system of networks allconnected and sending information at light speed from place to place known asthe Internet. This is a trend word for the nineties yet it has a backgroundthat spans all the way back to the sixties. The history of the Internet is afull one at that even though it has only been around for about 30 years. It hasgrown to be the greatest collection of networks in the world, its origins goback to 1962.

In 1962 the original idea for this great network of computers sprungforth from a question 'How could U. S. authorities successfully communicate aftera nuclear war?' The answer came from the Rand Corporation, America's foremostCold War think-tank. Why not create a network of computers without one centralmain authoritative unit (Sterling 1) The Rand Corporation working along side theU. S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) devised a plan. The networkitself would be considered unreliable at all times; therefore it would neverbecome too dependable and powerful. Each computer on the network or node wouldhave its own authority to originate, pass, and receive messages. The name givento this network was the ARPANET

To fully understand the ARPANET, an understanding of how a network worksis needed. A network is a group of computers connected by a permanent cable ortemporary phone line. The sole purpose of a network is to be able tocommunicate and send information electronically. The plan for the ARPANET wasto have the messages themselves divided into packets, each packet separatelyaddressed to be able to wind its way through the network on an individual basis. If one node was gone it would not matter, the message would find a way toanother node. The idea was kicked around by MIT, UCLA, and RAND during the sixties. After the British setup a test network of this type, ARPA decided to fund alarger project in the USA.

The first university to receive a node called anInterface Message Processor for this network was UCLA around Labor Day, markingSeptember 1, 1969 the birth date of the Internet as we know it today (Cerf 1).The next university was Stanford Research Institute (SRI) then UC Santa Barbara(UCSB), and finally University of Utah (Cerf 1). The original computers used to connect to the ARPANET were considersuper computers of the time. Science Data Systems (SDS) Sigma 7 was the name ofthe original computer at UCLA (Cerf 1). Each one of the computers connected toeach other at a speed of about 400,000 bytes per second or 400 kbps over adedicated line, which was fast at the time. Originally they connected using aprotocol, 'Network Control Protocol', or NCP but as time passed and thetechnology advanced, NCP was superseded by the protocol used by most Internetusers today TCP/IP (Sterling 2). TCP or Transmission Control Protocol convertsthe message into streams of packets at the source, then reassembles them backinto messages at the destination.

IP, or Internet Protocol handles theaddressing, seeing to it that packets are routed across multiple nodes and evenacross multiple networks with multiple standards not only ARPA's. Thisprotocol came into use around 1977 (Zakon 5). In 1969 there existed 4 nodes, in 1971 there were 15, and in 1972 therewere 37 nodes. This exponential growth has continued even today in 1996 thereare about 5.3 million nodes connected to the Internet (Zakon 14). The number ofpeople, however, is estimated because the number of people connected to any onenetwork varies. The amount of content over the Internet is estimated at about12,000,000 web pages.

As the numbers grew and grew the military finally droppedout in 1983 and formed MILNET. The ARPANET also dawned a new name in 1989; itbecame known as the Internet. The ARPANET was not the only network of this time. Companies had theirown Local Area Network or LAN and Ethernet. LANs usually have one main serverand several computers connected to that server, such as the computer lab at Prep. The server usually has a large hard drive and possibly share a printer. Thecomputers connected to the server generally have a microprocessor and maybe asmall hard drive. All the important software is shared from the server. AnEthernet on the other hand, is similar to a LAN but the connecting cable islarge and enables other computers on the network to be up to 1000ft.

Away. Thespeed of an Ethernet is faster than a regular LAN its base speed is 10Mbps. Toput this in perspective it is more than 300% more faster than a regular modemtraveling at 28.8kbps. Each of these types of networks connected to theInternet through their own dedicated node. There is no government regulating the Internet, it is anarchy in itsgreatest form. The Internet's 'anarchy' may seem strange, but it makes acertain deep and basic sense. It's rather like the 'anarchy' of the Englishlanguage.

Nobody rents or owns English. As an English-speaking person, it's upto you to learn how to speak English properly and use it however you want. Though many people earn their living from using, exploiting, and teachingEnglish, 'English' as an institution is public property. Much the same goesfor the Internet. Would the English language be improved if there was anEnglish Language Co.? There'd probably be far fewer new words in English, andfewer new ideas. People on the Internet feel the same way about theirinstitution.

It's an institution that resists institutionalization. TheInternet belongs to everyone and no one (Sterling 4). Our government and many others are attempting to regulate material onthe Internet. The Telecommunications Act that passed about a year ago whichincluded the Communication decency act (CDA), put a few rules not on theInternet but on the people who own computers connected to the Internet, such aschild pornography. It is illegal to post on any website anywhere. This Act wasruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Other governments have tried toput limitations on the Internet and some have even succeeded.

China requiresusers and ISPs to register with police. Germany cut off access to somenewsgroups carried on CompuServe. This ban was lifted due to protest. SaudiArabia confines Internet Access to universities and hospitals. Singaporerequires political and religious content to register with the state. NewZealand classifies computer disks as 'publications' that can be censored andseized (Zakon 14). On November 1 the New York state senate passed a bill which, barring a constitutional challenge, made speech that is 'ha ...

Research paper and essay writing, free essay topics, sample works The History Of The Internet

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