The Internet: How it Works and How it Effects the World Many people do not understand what the Internet is the power that it has over the world. The Internet is an extraordinary learning and entertainment tool that, when used properly, can significantly enhance a user's ability to gather information. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) started the Internet. It was a project under taken by the Department Of Defense (DOD) in 1969.
It started as an experiment to link together DOD and military research including Universities doing military-funded research. "The reliable networking part involved dynamic rerouting." (Levine 12) If one of the computers was under enemy attack, the information could be automatically transferred to other links. Fortunately, the Net is not usually under enemy attack. The ARPANET was very successful, and every university in the country wanted to sign up. Because so many people wanted to use the Net, ARPANET started getting hard to manage, especially with many university sites on it.
Therefore, it was broken into two parts: MILNET, which had all the military sites, and ARPANET, which had all the nonmilitary sites. "The two networks remained connected, however, thanks to a technical scheme called IP (Internet Protocol), which enabled traffic to be routed from one net to another as needed. All the networks connected by IP in the Internet speak IP, so they can all exchange messages." (Levine 12) Even though there were only two networks at that time, IP was made to allow thousands of networks.
The IP is designed so that every computer on an IP network is compatible. That means any machine can communicate with any other machine. The Internet, also called the Net, is the world's largest computer network. The Internet is the "network of all networks." (Levine 7) The networks are connected to big companies like AT&T, as well as to home computers.
About 1,000 networks join each month. Every computer that is attached to the Internet is called a host. Hosts can be super computers with thousands of users, regular PC's with only a couple of users, or specialized computers, like routers that connect networks together or to terminal servers that let terminals dial in and connect to other hosts.
