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Assignment #2
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The internet is a resource that has infinite potential. A collection of information ever-expanding, more and more people are using the internet every day. From finding recipies, to shopping, to taking classes of all sorts, or chatting with people across the world in real time, there is almost nothing one cannot do or learn on the internet.
By definition, the internet is ". . . a global network of networks enabling computers of all kinds to directly and transparently communicate and share services throughout much of the world." (1)
What exactly does this mean? Lets explore this definition.
A network is a group of computers that are all connected to each other so that they can share information. The internet is a "network of networks" or many, many networks, all over the world, connected to each other. This allows an overwhelmingly vast sharing of information.
In 1973 research into networking large groups of computers, by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), providing the foundation for the future of the internet. 13 years later, in 1986 the U.S. National Science Foundation came into play, developing the major backbone of communications networking existing. Over the next few years, several groups contributed to the evolution of the internet, though it was still several years before the internet became as we know it today.(2) It is only in the past few years that internet has truly began to take on its potential. In these recent years, there has been an internet boom- increasing in exponential number every day.
Within the internet are search engines. Searh engines are directories of many websites (pages writted in a code named HTML and viewed with a software program called a browser). Individual search engines organized these websites nto categories for easy viewing. To find a page on some topic in a search engine, one would type in a keyword. The search engine then matches the keyword to websites in its directories, orgaizing and displaying them in order of the most related to the seach. (Hence the name search engine). The internet provides a vast amount of information that can sometimes be overwhelming, so this type of organization is very important.
While the internet is a wonderful resource, full of beneficial information, one must be aware that it can also be dangerous- providing one's name, address, or credit card number in a single insecure site could lead to countless possible problems. It could also be a main cause of perhaps the largest generation gap (the one created by the computer) ever existing- though this has actually proved to be much less a concern than before thought.
The internet is a wonderful resource if use correctly, and in he present, we have began to see a glimmer of its possibile true potential. Only time will tell how mauch impact this will have on humanity.
(1) http://www.isoc.org/internet/
(2) http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/cerf.html