Revolution
of the Internet
(10)
The
Internet, a very complex and revolutionary invention of 1965, has
changed our
world. The Internet can be defined as “a global communications network
consisting of thousands of networks typically interconnected by fiber
optic
cabling”(1). The internet is always
transforming into
new complex hardware and software, in addition to the services it
offers.
Another definition of the internet is as follows: “The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting
capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for
collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers
without
regard for geographic location”(2). My objective for this paper is to
demonstrate and explain what the Internet is, including its components
and
history.
The Internet can be explained as a network
of networks, linking numerous government, university and private
computers to
one another, while providing many services such as E-mail, hypertext
documents,
instant messages, and data exchanges. The Internet is the largest
network of
networks worldwide. The Internet uses many different protocols, the
most
important being TCP/IP.
The computer networking revolution began in
the early 1960s and has led us to today’s technology. The Internet was
first
invented for military purposes, and then expanded to the purpose of
communication among scientists. The invention also came about in part
by the
increasing need for computers in the 1960s. During the Cold War, it was
essential to have communications links between military and university
computers
that would not be disrupted by bombs or enemy spies. In order to solve
the
problem, in 1968 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) made
contracts with BBN (Bolt, Beranek and
Newman) to
create ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).
The
invention of the Internet, along with
the field of computer networking, was derived from the invention of the
telephone network. Unlike the telephone network, the Internet uses
packet
switching. Packet switching was invented by three different independent
research groups around the world. MIT graduate student Leonard Kleinrock, one of the first people to invent
packet
switching, was also the first person to publish work on packet
switching. The
work done at MIT, Rand and NPL helped lay the foundation of today’s
Internet. Kleinrock’s colleagues J.C.R. Licklider
and Lawrence Roberts of MIT went on to head the computer science
program at the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Roberts published a complete
plan for
the ARPAnet, which is the first
packet-switched
computer network.
“Packet-switched and
circuit-switched networks, two different technologies used for sending
messages, each have their advantages for specific applications.”(9) The
telephone network uses circuit switching, meaning that whenever a call
is made,
a circuit will be connected among two or more phone lines. Circuit
switching
networks require point to point bonding prior to transfer (there is
only one
path dedicated for the connection), and networks also require sending
and
receiving information constantly. On the other hand, the packet
switching
network, which has been used in the Internet, is different. Packet
switching
networks divide the data into small blocks; each block or packet has
the
possibility of taking a different path than the other to the
destination; at
the destination, the packets will be recompiled into the original
message. (9)
In September of 1969, the first
packet-switched computer network was installed in UCLA and was
supervised by Kleinrock. In December of
1969, ARPA’s
network expanded to include three other nodes throughout the
(7)
The ARPA network originally used NCP
(Network Control Protocol), but as time progressed, the ARPA network
adapted a
new protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet
Protocol)
in the year 1983 . The TCP “converts
messages into
streams of packets at the source, then reassembles them back into
messages at
the destination” (3). The IP “handles the addressing, seeing to it that packets are routed across multiple nodes and
even
across multiple networks with multiple standards” (3).
The
internet started to become more popular and widespread. By the year
1971, 15
nodes (23 hosts) had been established in the following locations: the
(7)
Additional packet-switching networks were
formed between 1970 and 1975. These networks include: ALOHAnet,
Telenet,
In early 1980s, there were more than two hundred hosts connected to ARPAnet. The number kept increasing and reached a hundred thousand by the end of the 1980s.(5) Moreover, many computer networks were formed in the 1980s. In the year 1981 BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork" was established and became an e-mail provider. BITNET also became a provider of file transfers in order to link universities together in the Northeast. (4) In the same year, CSNET(Computer Science Network) was created for university scientists who did not have access to ARPAnet. CSNET also provided E-mail accounts for the university scientists.(8) In 1986, NSFNET, which serves as a backbone for support, was established with the purpose of offering access to NSF-sponsored supercomputing centers. (4) The NSFNET started with a speed of 56 kbps and by the beginning of the 1990s their speed increased to 1.5 Mbps. (4)
(7)
The Internet quickly transformed from a nationwide infrastructure network to an international phenomenon. In the early 1980s, the French instigated the Minitel project, with the objective of bringing internet access to all French residents through more than 20,000 services. The Minitel system included a public packet-switched network, Minitel servers, and reasonably priced terminals that came with built-in low-speed modems. In 1994, the French government distributed free Minitel terminals to any French home that fancied one. The Minitel was in many French homes a decade before nearly any Americans knew about the Internet. (4)
(7)
In
the 1990s, the whole world started to change more drastically
technological
wise and the Internet began to affect people. The number of end systems
connected to the Internet reached one million. One of the most
important events
that happened in the 1990s was the invention of the World Wide Web
(WWW). The
first Web was started in November 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN.(8) With the start of WWW and browsers to surf
the Internet, the commercialization emerged and has change the world
tremendously (especially, with the development of the GUI browsers,
such as,
Mosaic Communications by Marc Andreesen
and Jim
Clark, which were later called Netscape Communications Corporations,
and their
opponent Microsoft Explorer).(4) “The
recent development and widespread deployment of the World Wide Web has
brought
with it a new community, as many of the people working on the WWW have
not thought
of themselves as primarily network researchers and developers.”(2)
Today, people can do almost anything that they can think of over the
Internet:
shopping, taking University level courses and obtaining University
degrees,
sending Instant Messages (IM), using the phone network, listening to
the
Internet talk radio, banking, buying and selling stock on the stock
market.
Even citizens of
The change in the 90s was incredibly fast. In 1991, there were more than 1 trillion bytes per month and 10 billion packets per month traffics in NSFNET.(8) In the same year, NSFNET increased their connection speed to T3 (44.736 Mbps).(8) In 1994, the traffic in NSFNET was more than 10 trillion bytes per month, and the number is increasing.(8) By the end of the 1990s, almost the whole world had access to the internet.
(10)
James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross in their
third edition of Computer Networking stated at the beginning of
their
book: “It seems that the computer networks are everywhere!”(4). Today
computer networks
(i.e. the Internet) literally are everywhere. In the year 2002, there
were over
200 million end systems. Statistics predict that by the year 2010,
about 80
percent of the world will be connected to the Internet. (5) As I have
stated in
the beginning of my paper: “the Internet is largest network of networks
worldwide;” I think that it is important to comprehend what that really
means.
The Internet is our future and many of us have forgotten what it would
be like
if the Internet had never been invented. The Internet has brought
nations and
peoples closer together through the sharing of knowledge and
information. Those
of us whom are or have been influenced by the Internet have all become
more
interdependent with the rest of the world and essentially more
knowledgeable
than before.
Bibliography:
(1) Internet
& Kleinschmidt, http://www.kleinschmidt.com/internet_and_kli/sld002.htm
(2) Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf,
David D. Clark,Robert E. Kahn,
Leonard Kleinrock,
Daniel C. Lynch,Jon Postel,
Larry, G.Roberts,
and Stephen Wolff,
http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/%7Ecs176a/handouts/history.html
(3)
Ted Nellen. HISTORY OF THE INTERNET,
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/history.html
(4) James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross. Computer Networking: A Top-Down
Approach Featuring The Internet - 3rd
edition. 2005.
(5) William F. Slater. Internet History
and Growth, 2002, http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/ 2002_0918_Internet_History_and_Growth.ppt
(6) History of
the Internet, http://www.internetvalley.com/archives/mirrors/davemarsh-timeline-1.htm
(7) An Atlas
of Cyberspace, http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/geographic.html
(8) Robert H'obbes'
Zakon, Hobbes’ Internet Timeline v7.0, http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
(9) Lee Copeland, Packet-Switched vs. Circuit-Switched Networks, http://www.computerworld.com/networkingtopics/networking/story/0,10801,41904,00.html
(10) Web Topology - Google and Friends,
http://valiant.iat.sfu.ca/eculture/chanx/2003_11.html
Cs 176A
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