History and role of the Internet

Content

1. Preface

2. Definition a. explanation of the term Internet
2.1. Definition
2.2. Requirements

3. History of the Internet
3.1. Introduction
3.2. The 60`s
3.3. The 70`s
3.4. The 80`s
3.5. The 90`s
3.6. View in the future

4. Values of the Internet

5. Inquiries and charts

6. Own point of view and ideas about the possible future and development of the Internet

7. Little Internet- dictionary

8. Origins

9. Statistics

1. Preface

The Internet is probably the most important way of communication and medium of the new "Millenium-Generation". In the past, in the present and especially in the future the Internet will certainly have a really great value for the society, economy and politics. Actually the Internet is a complex and difficult article of daily use we want to explain in detail to a number of readers who have not been connected and related to the "World Wide Web". The "Global Village" how it is called in the field of communication has an immensly huge value. With the help of the long history we hope to underline the developing of the different kinds of nets. So it is possible to understand the main and original ideas of the inventors and the users some years ago. Within we descibe the aspects of opinions from the population to the population. Of course our point of view won't be missing in our depiction which we hope from you can enjoy doing it. At least you can pick out the most impressing information you want. We wish you a lot of fun while reading our work.

2. Definition and explanation of the term Internet

2.1. Definition

The Internet is assembled of numerous of computers - networks of important organizations and companies. Through these local networks computers of an institution are connected to each other. More than 50 million CPUs have been linked to the Internet worldwide. It is constructed decentral and accessible to all classes of the population. In the Internet you are able to use several services like E-mail. Because of that one could communicate with people all over the world, so the Internet is also called the "GLOBAL VILLAGE".

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2.2. Requirements for a fast connection to the Internet

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You can see that you have a few possibilities to build up a connection to the Internet but it is your decision and it depends on your financial situation. A new fast computer costs a lot of money and several providers differ n aspects of service, prices and speed. The prices a minute are at the moment about 1.8 Pfennig and 3 Pfennig. The users being online more than perhaps fourty hours a month should think about to get oneself a "Flatrate". This makes it possible to surf as much as the user wants to but he just pays an inclusive charge.

3. The history of the Internet

3.1. Introduction

At first one could say that the Internet is a child of the Cold War. It was an answer of the first sattelite of the USA, which was the first one in space. Primary the Internet was just used by military organisations as a preparation for the postapocalypse of nuclear holocaust. The trial of preventing a big technical and strategical advantage of the communistic UdSSR stood on focus. Responsible of this issue was the "Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)".

3.2. The 60`s

The task was to build up the preconditions for the USA to become the leading position in science and technology. In the 1960`s the USA had a repertoire of computers. The idea was to connect all of them and to build up one huge network. So it was possible to give orders from a major in Indiana to a lieutenant in Kansas. But there was also one disadvantage: if one station in the network broke down the hole net did not work anymore. Now the question was how to communicate after a nuclear holocaust? After a sponsorship of the ARPA a suggestion was founded by Paul Baran. His work "On Distributed Communications Networks" gave the first theoreticals basis of mediate networks. The main facts were that this network did not have any central position and that it has the possibility to work although one of the parts would have been destroyed.

The idea of the ARPA-Net was born. In the October of the year 1967 the Operating Principles were shown to the public. At first four and later sixteen locations should have been connected. In 1968 first rules for uniform computers were published. It was also a linking event to Europe.

3.3 The 70`s

The first working network existed in Great Britain. The ARPANET started in the year 1969. A public presentation in 1971 was a suitable location and time where the ideas and developement of the ARPANET were presented. It was a real success. In the curse of the presentation an "International Network Working Group (INWG)" was founded to coordinate and expand the ARPANET out of the USA.

A new problem was born: The communication between the several kinds of net - systems was more difficult than ever before. Robert Kahn researched with other scientists a solution to connect the networks. In 1973 a revolutionary protocol was passed (Transmission Control Protocol), which solved the "Internet-Problem". The word "Internet" firstly appeared in the year 1974 when a new program was published.

Of course the ARPANET was only an experimental network. In comparison with the Internet today you can say that there are no really similar issues. It was only a short time until the first commercial network was built up. It was developed by Bolt, Beranek and Newman and was called "Telenet".

To send information from one computer to another was possible since the year 1978.

The birth of new net - system was celebrated in 1979. Two members of the Duke University wanted every student to be able to communicate with other pupils with the help of the computer. That new system was called USENET. That was the first time that two computers were connected by telephone - pipe: The Duke University and the University of North Carolina. It was only neccessary to save files on one computer. A community with a crowd of students with the sense of public and accessible information was developed.

3.4. The 80`s

The ARPANET was dissolved in 1981. All the computers were connected with the standard system. The European countries wanted to have a similar network. In 1982 the European Unix Network (EUnet) was born in Paris. Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain and the Netherlands were the users of that new net. A not difficult issue seemed to be the connection of the Europe and American systems. The result of a new organization was the renaming of the existing net.

Since that time it was called "Internet Activities Board". After the connection between students, military people, scientists and Europeans only one group was missed: The Dos- Users. The developed FIDONET by Tom Jennings gave private users the possibility to send mails and discuss with other people in front of the computer. Even in Asia a new network regarded the light of the world, another step to a global village.

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Although the development was carried by the army, the military built up a new net only for its using and took ones leave of the old ARPANET. The new net was called MILNET. All military stations were connected in the MILNET.

The question of IP adresses and domains were in focus in 1986. To make the computers recognizible, while using e-mails, all computers got an own number.

The adresses in the different nets, especially in the Usenet, were called newsgroups. Those newsgroups had the task to inform about several topics like sports, social issues and topics about freetime. A typical example was: "rec.sports.football". Rec= topic about freetime The different appreviations were: rec =freetime

talk =discussions

soc =social issues

sci =science

comp =computer topics

news =newsgroups

misc =any other

The number of computers connected with the net increased dramatically from 2000 in February 1986 to 5000 in November of the same year and 28,000 in the end of the following year 1987. The speed of the connection was also increased with the help of the firms IBM and MCI. In 1988 the first virtuell kabel (links about the satellits) from Europe to America were piped. The first virus in the Internet was the cause of the first crisis. 6,000 of 60,000 people were disconnected from the net to prevent a disaster. The "success" of that virus was the useless of the computers because of the extrem high rates of rake. But a positive effect was born: Many experts of the net-security thought about new standards in safety to prevent a new catastrophe. But not only uncomfortable developments went on in that year. A new programme was founded, which gave the possibility to talk with each other. It was possible to communicate about channels and to discuss with other interested people. Time after time the commercial firms, which offered emails, were connected, too.

Typical kinds of net looked like that old net- the TELNET

The following countries have a connection to the net since 1989:

Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Japan, Israel, Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands.

The most successfull using of the net was born in 1989, too: The World Wide Web (WWW).

3.5. The 90`s

The headline of 1990 could be: Goodbye ARPANET, welcome INTERNET. Until October of 1990 313,000 computers were linked.

Now other countries from Southamerica, Asia and Europe were linked with the famous net:

Argentina, Brasil, Chile, India, Southkorea, Belgium, Austria, Ireland, Greece, Spain and Swiss.

It seemed to be needfull to build up a new area for the companies and their using. To deal in the net the firms founded a new field of the existing community- the new Commercial Internet Exchange.

The famous inventions in the year 1991 were "Gopher" and "Wais".

Gopher was the predecessor of the Internet today and meant a menu- driven surface that made it possible to find out the important information one was looking for. That menu was devided into submenus which made it easier to find ones way in the big world of the information. With the Gopher network one was able to communicate about another server. This picture shows a typical Gopher Menu

"Wide Area Information System" (WAIS) was a Searching- System one could look with for single terms in the texts. The results were listed on the screen. That system is similar to the Searching- Systems today and was a big progress to improve the possibilities. But as long as not enough servers existed ,which offered a number of information in form of file directories, there were huge problems.

In the end of 1991 615,000 computers were linked about the net.

The net expanded to new countries like Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapure and Tunesia.

As a matter of facts it was possible to send e-mails including graphical details, sounds and pictures. That maybe seemed to be very amazing and crazy.

The dramaticly icreasing number of linked CPU's was about one million. The following countries got a supply in 1992:

The Baltic States, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Cameron, Slovakia and Slowenia.

The 25th birthday was celebrated in 1994. The year 1969 is called the official birthday of the Internet. While celebrating the birthday the boom went on. About four million computers have been connecting to the Internet and the number increased. Further other countries like Jamaica got a supply.

The commercial e-mail offering firms like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy now were able to offer the access to the Internet and all the members could use the service like WWW, FTP or Gopher.

100% growth- the exponential and really impressive number of members of the net.

In the course of time of the late 90`s it has been tried to improve several aspects of the connection. The transfer of videofiles, soundfiles, graphicfiles and applets have standed in focus. An important role has played the development of faster CPUs and modems which give a guarantee for a connection with a high speed.

The growth of the Internet has not been stopped until now. It is a positive signal that the number of people using the Internet still increases. The following diagramme will prove this theme.

25 percent of the Internet adresses are "com-domains" that means that 25% of the members are commercial companies. These numbers make it clear how important the Internet is, especially for factories and other companies

The process of the developing of the Internet have been a very long term. About twenty-five years went on until the Internet in its form today existed. Many different kinds of nets were founded and developed. And those nets are the basis for the Internet today which is used by millions of people.

The single states have their own adresses. The German state for exmaple has the adress www.something.de. The appreviation de stands for Deutschland. Other appreviations are

.com · companiy or commercial

.at · Austria

.uk · United Kingdom .us · USA

.ru · Russia

3.6. View in the future

How will it go on? It is a question which can be answered very easily. The number of users will certainly still increase with no ending because of technical progress in the countries which are now one or two steps behind the leading states in the field of the informationsociety. The door for these states will probably ever be open. But there are a lot of work to give the best preconditions for the countries.

4. The value of the Internet

No medium is better able to be as up-to-date as the the Internet. If you print a catalogue or a prospect it could be that it is already old- fashioned tomorrow. But it is possible to update the Internet presence at least in the same evening without a huge expenditure - information on call all day. Within there are intelligente agents and Search Systems to give a help. At once you are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year via Internet. There are no limited opening times. One can inform even about offers from firms, supermarkets or traders at night. Fortunately there are new media in the Internet to support information or analogue issuess like sound, picture, films. Interactive elements lead to a big bond of the clients to the companies. The customers don't by just a normal products but receive generell service. They also have the possibility to acquire global products all over the world instead of local ones in the shops. Companies are able to communicate, in comparison to "normal" media, more topical, more interactive and much cheaper.

The value for commercial trades is immedietly high. So you can imagine that the Internet caused a big boom in the economy. The effects were visible in the stock -market or the profit of the Internet companies. The shar prices traded in Frankfurt, New York or Tokyo increased to unbelievable high spheres.

Even smaller firms which were founded just one or two years ago like Intershop used this boom for their development and so they managed their rise to global firms like Apple or Intel. It was an amazing development with many riscs. So it is logical that this trend was going to be over in September and October of 2000. And the shar prices now still remain decreasing. What are the reasons of this event? This question cannot be answered easily. Several indications point for the reason of an overdose of offers. Almost every person has a computer wright now. Most of these have an access to the Internet, too. So the need for the "new technologies" is not as high as some years or months ago. The boom is over in field of sales. Computers can be bought in technical shops, supermarkets, catalogues or of course in the Internet itself. Internet and no and end- in the run of time and its development in field of other communication medium you are able to go online by using your mobile phone. With the help of the Internet shy people can communicate via Internet. Chat- it is a conversation with someone else in the Internet- in realtime! No fears of friendships anymore. It is an area of the absolut anonymity. If the conversation partner tells the truth, people can get to know each other without prejudices which they get to know from their outer appearance. But this attractive fact becomes a problem, too. Can anybody say whose statements are correct or not? This is a problem for the general society. Is the anonymous society really desirable? That would be a dramatic development. Is it a progress? No, it is not. During the years the society developed more and more to an uncommunicative one. Reasons are individual aspects, the egoism and the famous "Ellenbogengesellschaft". Obviously this society causes many illnesses like addiction. No, not only drugs can make somebody addictive. The Internet and the computers does it, too. How come? It is more the psychological fact than the physical aspect. A lot of people being alone are looking for their happiness in the field of the Internet, that means the institutions like chats and emails. As far as possible many scientists have been trying to investigate this illness but without success, which gave a clear result. Certainly the Internet can give new dimensions to the society, too. But a few riscs are still existend. The task for the near and far future is to fight against these negative phenomenoms.

How often do we hear titels about the missusing of the Internet? It is an issue of the daily discussions. And the field of missusing is extremly high, extreme right- wing sides, pornographical sides, sides of several sects and others. Why can these criminal people spread their wings in the Internet? What can be done? Thism is a question which is linked with the laws of the single states. The law is only responsible for the sides which have the appreviation for the states like "de". So the possibility to go round the law is not difficult enough. Right- wing pages can only be as popular as today if they have the appreviations .com or others. The conflicts were created by the different laws of the states. For example the dealing with Nazi books, songs or signs in Germany and France is strictly forbitten. But in the USA it is permitted! To achieve a technical barrier seems to be extremly complicated. As a main fact it is to say that there are about 140 laws. This law applies where the page have been called up, so it is nearly not possible to forbit all the deals. But on the other hand it is the lazyness of these people who are able to fight against the criminal aspects in the Internet and these ones who don't do it. Unique laws would be a logical conclusion. We do have a nearly united Europe, we have laws for almost every matter. Why are we not able to pass unique laws for at least the European countries? There are no unique ones for the hole Internet pages. The countries ought to have unique laws to prevent the expanding of criminal and illegal homepages. But what does illegal really mean? The language plays an extremly important role. As soon as the pages are written in the English language the sides are not illegal anymore because the German laws have no value anymore and are not able to judge. An agreement of all states would be immensly significant for the future of the Internet and the linked security of the general population.

This leads to another aspect of security- the data protection. This is a central point of the Internet. Obviously everybody who has certain knowledge is able to download programmes and data and so he can snoop around in foreign files. Without certain code programmes you are helpless against hackers who are computer specialists with the aim of getting into foreign computer systems. This could be dangerous in the field of online banking and financial issues. Who does not remember such events like the online robbery in England's Central Bank. Even Bill Gates` credit card was cracked open by a hacker from Wales. Such hackers do mostly not have the aim of criminal activities but often they want to show the publicity how unsafe the programmes and other virtual institutions are.

Furthermore they want to have publicity to get a status of a famous hacker. Sometimes these people get a job in a famous company like Microsoft. They prooved their abilities. But it is of course a criminal way to gain recognition. The hackers are on one hand dangerous for the Internet society but on the other hand they are very helpful to find out several errors of the new and old programmes. So progress is guaranteed.

Maybe one should think about to hire the hackers in the beginning of developing the programme. So they have an important function in our society. And this would be a positive effect because the hackers are mostly competent computer users.

The advertising in the Internet is surely another fact which causes conflicts between the "normal" Internetusers and the Internetcompanies. For the population the advertisments are often nuisance. On one hand adds appear almost everywhere and everytime and on the other hand firms are promoted day and night by using different types of advertising. But the corperation between the Internetfirms is only guaranteed by these adds which make a perfect structure. As a matter of facts the adds give a guarantee that the jobs keep existend because many advertising- tactician and designers and market researchers are employed. This function of increasing the profit is very essential. Companies can only survive if the field of advertising is big enough. You can only be famous if the population get to know your factory via the advertising. The Internet is the best place for it. But also the private user can make profit by adds in the Internet. If there are enough visitors on the homepage the page is lucrative for firms and so they are interested in buying add- banners.

To summarize this aspect we can say that it is really advisably to build up an attractive homepage with an interesting context to stand in focus of the publicity and to make money with it through advertising because of the huge money- potential of the big firms. Homepages are usefull for the hobbies. Many people just want to show their interests and opinions to a great number of people through the medium Internet.

After a long discussion the German telephone company Telekom decided to equip the German schools with an Internet access. Why is it so usefull? At first one can say that pupils are encouraged to use the new medium and to learn the dealings with it. As a second matter the communnication between the schools and the "real world" stands in focus. The students should have knowledge about what is going on in the world. The cultural aspect here plays a tremendously role. The pupils are able to discover other new and unpopular cultures in other parts of the earth. Without the Internet it would not be possible. Furthermore the lessons are more attractive than twenty years ago. In addition the students ought to learn to deal with dangers and crime in the net. It is a way of educating the new "Millenium Generation". The sense of the lessons with the Internet is that the pupils are educated to responsible rule-conforming adults.

So it is distinct that the government and leading institutions have to intervene in the process of new media and to support the young generation to give a base for their future life where it is essential to deal with the Internet, computers, e- mails and other technical matters. The subvention of Internet courses and lessons are really contructive laws which guarantees a modern society.

The freedom of the press and the freedom of speech is a central aspect of a modern society. In relation to that the Internet will play a huge responsibility. Through the Internet a multi- cultural and tolerant society will be possible. It sounds good, does it? At the first view it does. But the freedom of speech goes into large dimensions. How far does this freedom be? Freedom is mostly the freedom of these people who are not the same opinion. This quote done by Rosa Luxemburg means that this freedom is not permitted to insult other human beings. Racism and violance would be logical "conclusions". And this is the point of an critical ridge between freedom of speech and criminal aspects. Especially in Germany the situation seems to be very strained. Our history shows us how dangerous the crossing from a democratic principal to a dictatorical state is. We as the German population have the function of an idol in the topic of figthing against racism in the Internet. We have to show the foreign countries how our system works. This is maybe an aspect which could be copied by other states like the USA or Russia.

To summarize all the aspects it is to be said that the "Global Village" gives a number of advantages to the society. At first there is the economical fact. Because of new sale markets in the developing countries a progress is possible. Furthermore there are new potentials and new inventions in the field of the new net. The next aspect is the progress for the population, more comfort, more offers and more service are the consequences. Shopping in front of the computer at home- no problem anymore! The safeness of time is amazingly high. No stress and queuing up as well as no nerving narrowness. Positive development is not to overlook. But the negative consequences give a strong contrast to the positive effects. Although new jobs have been created for the Internet: Old traditional jobs are abolished, like sellers or advisers. This leads to a new unempolyement rate.

The Internet supports communication and it prevents communication, no doubt about it.

Institutions like chats and emails help the people to get to know each other and to communicate but on the other hand the personal and individual fact becomes less important than twenty years ago without the Internet. Everybody sits in front of the computer - alone.

This leads to an isolation of the computer users. They do not see the nature and the real world like other people.

The Internet is an invention which splits the population and leads to amazing contrasts in the field of advantages and disadvantages and the advantages own the majority?

5. Questionary

The topic Internet is a theme which is being discussed very hot in the population, too. In fact of this we made a poll. To illustrate our results we want to show a graphical evaluation for all of our questions to the public.

a) Our first question was about the possession of the Internet access. The quote of people

using the Internet was nearly about 50 % which is understandable. The number of 50 % is the typical average in Germany so we weren't surprised about it. It is quite normal that there are still a few prejudices towards the Internet, especially in Germany, and its disadvantages or point of criticism which were described before.

b) The access stands in focus of our second part of the poll. We asked how long the people have got the access to the net. The answers were devided complexly. The most of the users have got it for only at most one year. The minority does the access have for over two or three and more years. It makes clear that the tendency of people using the Internet is still increasing.

c) A clear vote was the result of our third question. About 90 % of the people who have not any own connections to the famous net wish to have an access in the near future. An impressive statement we guess. The public is interested in new technologies and forms of communication. There is a big need of developing.

d) Another question was about the using of the access. Hardly to believe that almost 10 % does not use their possibility of communication and information. Are these the prejudices or ignorance of our German population? A number which should cause considerations!

e) The individual value of the information highway was the central aspect in our 4th question. As you can see the value is very high. The majority of the asked people have the oppinion of an important media which the Internet ought to demonstrate. But the "normal" people cannot use every function of the net and so it is understandable that a high number of intervewee had given only mark seven.

f) A very hot discussed topic is the criticism of the negative aspects which the Internet possess. A big role plays the missusing of the flooding of the information, for example pornography and extremism. Although the Internet costs have redused to a minimum many citizen are disappointed about them. Here is shown the missing enlightenment.

g) A very interesting because up-to-date question was the 7th one. We wanted to know if the interviewee has ever bought something in the Internet. Only one third have done it. Which facts play an important role in relation to that? Are there any riscs or fears? From our point of view it is only a quite normal matter that these numbers are not as high as they will be in ten years. It will last a certain time until buying in the Internet is a normal event.

h) Different users- different kinds of using: This was the result of our 8th question. The internet is used especially for the school and private matters. For pupils it is very easy and important to look for help in the Internet. It is also very easy to search for information.

Actually the net is helpful for homework, reports and information. For the generation today it is a normal action.

6. Own points of view

Fundamental you can say that the Internet is a really great invention, not only in our age.

Concerning the history it was subjected to a long development so that we now have that what we call the Internet. With it one could notice that it has not been fully ripened yet and we have the oppinion that there are in general two possibilities which can happen to the Internet:

a) The first one is that it will be elabotated on by hackers or computer- and Internet specialists of important companies like for example Microsoft. Altogether that means the Internet will become faster, larger, cheaper and so more significant. But for this reason we guess that it is going to be a complete object of usage, more than it is today. Nobody could live anymore without an access to the net because normal issues of today will be done by using the computer and the electronical network: communication, shopping, banking and matters like that just being online in the nearer future. A further aspect which would be conceivable could be online - schooling: one tutor for maybe fifty or more students. But such futural aspects which nobody can predict could be the reasons for new problems to the society. The mankind would become more and more lazy and nobody will probably communicate to each other on a real basis. Contact to other persons would be excluded, everybody just sits in front of his monitor maybe lifelong.

b) The second possibility would be the development of a totally new kind of network.

Because the predictable development of the Internet could not be stopped. Somewhere in the future it would be scooped out and so it would be difficult for managers of important companies to slaughter out the financial aspect of the "old" Internet. So we are sure that sometimes there will be a new kind of net. In connection with new technical developments there could be complete innovative aspects and possibilities, for example beaming up products from supermarkets? But to which extends that will lead cannot be answered by anybody.

7. Little Internet- Dictionary

E-mail: Electronic mail, which is transfered by the Internet readable with the computer

Modem: Little electronic appliance, which makes it possible to built up an InternetConnection

WWW: =World Wide Web · general name of the Internet

Provider: Company which sells software for the Internet access

Browser: Program which guarantees a regarding of Internet-pages Homepages: Internet- side

Hyperlink: Internetaddress to click on · pass on another page

To Surf: Regarding different kinds of Internetpages

Domain: Address in the Internet, for example www.edproducts.de

Hacker: Name for computer- experts who get into foreign computers without any legal permission but it is not always used with a negative meaning

HTML: Program- language which is used for writing a web page

FTP: Online service which makes it possible to look for files in the net to download on your harddrive or disk

Host: A server whose services the user takes up via Internet

Server: A computer which offers services to other connected computers

Webmaster: A person who has designed an own page or a page for a company

Origins

Internet:

www.internetreport.de

http://www.ccp.ucla.edu/pages/internet-report.asp

Books:

PC know-how Nr.4 Selfhtml

online TODAY Nr.7/99

Internet - Der Reiseführer...

Computer Bild Nr.20/99

Das Internet-Lexikon

Television:

ARD Ratgeber Recht on December the 17th (5 o'clock p.m.)

ARD Tagesschau

9. Statistics

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Bearbeitungszeitraum: 12. Juli 2000 - 21. Dezember 2000