Can
you imagine a world without the Internet? The Internet is a great communication
tool that connects people from around the globe through a network of
connections between computers. It creates a virtual world that allows people to
share news, stories, pictures, and information with each other. I personally
use this technology on a daily basis. It would be almost strange to not have
it. I constantly email myself important files and email both business and
personal associates. But this technology did not just fall out of the sky; rather
the US Government created it.
DARPA creates ARPANET, predecessor to the
Internet.
After
the Soviets launched the satellite Sputnik in 1957, the US government decided
to establish DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) whose main
goal was to create a better way to communicate. In 1969 DARPA succeeded by
creating the Advanced Research Projects Agency network (ARPANET), the first
national computer network. It was
first used as a way to connect universities and military to connect
geographically far researchers as a way to share information. This was a major
breakthrough because it was the beginning of online communications. However,
there is a major distinction between today’s Internet and yesterday’s ARPANET;
ARPANET lacked protocol or a common language that would be used by computers to
easily interpret messages and information sent by other computers.
The creation of Email, a way for people
to easily stay connected.
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| Ray Tomlinson(Above) is credited for creating email and the distinguishing email symbol @, a way to distinguish between the sender and the machine |
Email was the next big step and
today is a major part of people’s lives. Without this technology you would have
to send all of your messages through actual letters and mail. Actually,
according to the book Converging Media,
today more messages are sent through email than through the US Postal Service.
That is a shocking statistic considering how major a role the US Postal Service
had before this innovation. This is all thanks to the work of Ray Tomlinson, who
in 1971 created email, a way for messages to be sent from one computer to
another. He also can be credited for the beginning of language between
computers when he decided to use @ to distinguish the name of the sender from
the machine he/she was working on, he used this because any other letter would
be confusing and would not separate the two bits of information as cleanly.
This innovation highlighted the necessity for a common language between
computers.
The Creation of an Internet protocol and
The World Wide Web.
In
1991, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn were the first to use the term “internet” and
created the transmission control protocol (TCP), which allowed computers to
easily communicate with each other over a network. Originally the Internet was
only used in academia and the government until Tim Berners-Lee created the
World Wide Web. Contrary to popular belief, the World Wide Web (WWW) is not
synonymous with the Internet, rather it uses the Internet to show and transmit
information. These major innovations along with the creation of hypertext
transfer protocol (HTTP) which allowed for hyperlinks, and hypertext markup
language (HTML) which describes how information should look on the website are
the reason the internet looks and acts the way it does today.
Misuse of the Internet today.
The
Internet is a major part in our lives and truly helps to make the world a
smaller place and can be used as a way to easily share information.
Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the Internet due to poor
economic means or even worse government regulation. At first it was thought that
the Internet could not be regulated but that is not true. In countries like China,
the government puts censorship on what people say and do on the Internet
and has even been known to throw people in jail. It is sad that such a great
invention that could be used to spread positive knowledge and freedom through
the world could be censored. Hopefully, someday the Internet will be free and
used by everyone.
It's always interesting to take a step back and look how far we have come with the advancement of the Internet. It's really hard to fathom the fact that up until 1991, the use of the Internet was not widespread. I was never aware of the fact that the United State’s government was the main reason the Internet came to be. It’s funny how global politics and the fight by national governments to position themselves as top nations was the leading cause of such an invention. Without the Internet this world would be a completely different place. The Internet allows such an enormous amount of information to be shared in an instant. Without this channel to communicate I believe we would not have many of the inventions that we enjoy today. The Internet allows us to spread ideas and spark new ones. It really is the force behind the economic advancement around the world.
ReplyDeletePersonally, whenever I think about the creation of the internet, I think of how much it has evolved, especially compared to the visions that its creators may have had. While a large portion of the internet is simply "sharing information", there is truly so much more to it. For example, the fact that companies can advertise and even sell products online has had a profound impact on both producers and consumers. On a different note, one other thing that really stood out to me about your post was the last paragraph, as it is likely to be an ongoing issue/debate for many years to come. I think that it is very important for all societies to have unrestricted internet access, although I unfortunately don't think that is going to be a reality any time soon. While poverty is clearly a contributing factor, I fear that the larger force against this is government interference. Sadly, while internet access is crucial to allow society to progress and diversify, it also can be very influential in spreading radical viewpoints, or even organizing protests, something many governments would rather not have to deal with.
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