The History of the Internet Introduction: The N

The Internet has become a modern tool of communication, capable of accessing vast amounts of information in a tenth of a second. The Internet evolved because of a need to communicate, but in a very particular way: interactively. As Harold Adams Innis (1994) noted, "changes in communications technology have often accompanied great social change." This has been the case throughout recorded history. As access to the printed page proved to be a powerful revolutionary and evolutionary force in medieval Europe, the Internet has opened up the world of documents to those capable of signing on.

As the Internet becomes more of an accepted part of communication architecture, it creates changes in the way we interact. Yet it is still just a tool, as speaking and writing as communication are meant to be.

Early History: Safeguarding Intelligence

The technological and ideological pieces began to the come together towards the end of World War II, forming the Internet we know today. Although computers were available for use in 1940s, computation was their chief virtue. Portability was only a consideration in regard to transfer of information. In an effort to coordinate vital information, the Allied military and intelligence communities connected computers in the United States and Europe to transmit information across the Atlantic (Stone, 1996, 26).

The use of computers to store information was not new. H

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nity (Leiner, 1997, 105). Protocols and Proliferation Representatives from projects around the world discussed the need to begin work on establishing agreed upon protocols. The InterNetwork Working Group (INWG) was created to begin discussions for common protocols and Vinton Cerf, who was involved with UCLA ARPANET was chosen as the first Chairman. The vision purposed for the architectural principles for an international interconnection of networks was "a mess of independent autonomous networks interconnected by gateways, just as independent circuits of ARPANET are connected by IMPS" (Hauben, 1993). This was the true beginning of the Internet as we recognize it today. Today's Internet embodies a key underlying technical idea: openarchitecture networking. In this approach, the choice of any individual network technology is not dictated by a particular network architecture but can be selected freely by a provider and made to interface with other networks through a manyleveled internetworking architecture. Protocols or benchmarking of accepted standards for Internet connections became the order of the day. Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn, still working under the auspices of ARPA which had changed its name to Defense Advanced
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Some common words found in the essay are:
AOL Compuserve, Protocol IP, Means Packetswitching, Netscape Explorer, Agency ARPA, FTP RFCs, Agency DARPA, Ward Christianson, Racing Internet, Future Internet, zakon 1996, hardy 1994, leiner 1997, at&t 1995, net hype 1996, net hype, online available, computer science, hauben 1993, file transfer, packet switching, leiner 1997 102, research network csnet, packet switching allows, science research network,
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Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)