The Internet: Communication with the World

1
The Internet Communication with the World

• The Internet grew from a grass-roots society into
  a global community.
• In this chapter
• How did the Internet evolve?
• What makes up the Internet?
• How do people use the Internet?
• What information can be found on the Internet?

2
In the Beginning...

• Usenet (Users Network)
• Individual conferences organized by topics of
  interest such as
• World events
• New technology
• National elections
• Privacy issues
• Entertainment
• Computer viruses
• Generates over 100 meg of new text daily
• Does not reside on any one computer

3
In the Beginning...

• The Matrix all computers and networks that have
  the capability of exchanging electronic mail.

4
Internet Planting the Seed and Growing the Plant

• Early 1960s
• Packet-switching envisioned (Baran and Davies)
• Divide a message into a smaller pieces called
  packets.
• Each packet contains where they came from and the
  address of where they are going.
• Each packet is sent to its destination
  separately.
• Provided the foundation for what became the
  Internet.
• 1966 ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)
• Funded computer network research.

5
Internet Planting the Seed and Growing the Plant

• ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency
  NETwork)
• Funded by ARPA.
• Pooled computer scientists and resources from
  several universities.
• In 1969, linked 4 nodes at UCLA, UC Santa
  Barbara, SRI (Stanford Research Institute) and U
  of Utah.
• By mid-1970s, linked several military sites and
  about 20 universities.
• ARPA intended to sell off the ARPANET.
• Transferred to the Defense Communications Agency
  in 1975.

6
Internet Planting the Seed and Growing the Plant

• NSF (National Science Foundation)
• In 1980, started CSnet.
• Provided a resource sharing network for computer
  science research at all universities.
• Used TCP/IP protocol.
• Linked 5 supercomputing centers with a very fast
  connection called a backbone.
• Each region surrounding the centers developed
  their own community network.
• Each community network had exclusive access to
  the backbone.
• Became known as NSFnet.

7
Internet Planting the Seed and Growing the Plant

• In 1983, ARPANET split.
• Part remained ARPANET universities, research
  institutes.
• Part became Milnet non-classified military
  information.
• Converted from Network protocol to TCP/IP
  protocol.
• In 1989, majority of ARPANET switched to NSFs
  backbone.
• Became what is known as the Internet.
• Early 1995 Information Superhighway.

8
UNIX, Gurus, and Gophers

• With the thousands of computers running the UNIX
  operating system, and freely distributed TCP/IP
  software suite
• Original access to the Internet had UNIX feel.
• Exact addresses were needed to access
  information.
• Addresses were strings of numbers
• Address for UCSD 128.54.16.1
• UNIX gurus ran the net.
• Gopher (University of Minnesota)
• Land of the Golden gophers.
• Introduced first improvement to accessing the
  Internet.
• Menu-driven system gave access to databases of
  information.
• Were once over 5,000 gopher servers.

9
UNIX, Gurus, and Gophers
Internet Gopher Information Client
v2.1.3 Home Gopher server gopher.tc.umn.edu
1. Information About Gopher/ 2. Computer
Information/ 3. Discussion Groups/ 4. Fun
Games/ 5. Internet file server (ftp)
sites/ 6. Libraries/ 7. News/ 8. Other Gopher
and Information Servers/ 9. Phone
books/ 10. Search Gopher Titles at the
University of Minnesota lt?gt 11. Search lots of
places at the university of Minnesota
lt?gt 12. University of Minnesota Campus
Information/ Press ? For Help, q to Quit, u to
go up a menu

10
UNIX, Gurus, and Gophers

• Searching for information on the Internet from
  Gopher
• Veronica
• Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Netwide Index to
  Computerized Archives.
• Indexed the entries of all of the known Gopher
  menus.
• Updated about twice weekly.
• Archie
• Searched ftp archive sites.
• These files were for downloading by using the
  Internet.
• Has more than 1,000,000 filenames today.
• Currently accessible through the WWW.

11
The Internet Growing

• Popular Internet functions illustrate the
  diversity of Internet use
• Information gathering
• University sites provide class and faculty
  information, books, library sources, lists of
  government documents
• Employment offices could provide vacancy notices
• Governmental agencies provide informational
  documents
• Students and academic researchers could use
  online bibliographies

12
The Internet Growing

• MUDs - Multi-User Dungeons
• MOOs - MUDs Object-Oriented
• Both are an outgrowth of Dungeons and Dragons
  role playing games of the 70s and 80s.
• Can play with people all over the world.
• There are more than 500 active MUDs.

13
The Internet Growing

• IRC - Internet Relay Chat
• Real-time online chat facilities
• Communication is accomplished via typing text
  over a channel