History Of The Internet Essay -- essays research papers

The year is 1957 and the USSR has just launched the first artificial earth satellite. In response America launches the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DOD) to create America’s lead in science and technology. The Internet had its humble beginnings here, within ARPA’s many projects.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Internet has become one of the key symbols of today’s pop culture: everything has a â€Å"dot com† address; people do not say â€Å"call me,† but instead its â€Å"I’ll E-mail you;† and the new word on the stock market is â€Å"E-business.† The Internet has not always been such a key figure in American life; in fact it was mostly unheard of until recently.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The theory for the Internet first started being published in 1961 with Leonard Kleinrock’s document on packet-switching theory, â€Å"Information Flow in Large Communication Net.† This document presented the theory behind the first problem of the Internet, and how to solve it1. The problem was this: when a large document is sent then pieces of it become lost in transfer and the entire document has to be resent, but then different pieces are missing from the new copy of the document. This is a major problem and the obvious solution is to â€Å"chop† the information up into smaller pieces and then transmit the smaller pieces2. Then another problem was realized, how does the computer know where to put these small bits of information? The solution to that was what has come to be known as packet-switching (PS). In PS, the entire document is sent in a bunch of tiny â€Å"packets,† these packets contain the information of the document â€Å"wrapped† in its placement on the page. The receiving computer then sends a message back to the transmitting computer telling it which packets were corrupted or missing and the transmitting computer then re-sends the lost information3.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The next problem that the Internet faced was first discovered at the ARPA’s networking project, ARPAnet. Since it was militarily connected, the leaders of ARPAnet wanted a way that information could be moved between two computers without requiring a direct connection in case the direct link between two computers failed (was destroyed). The way that the ARPAnet project dealt with this was by having the network bounce the information around without it taking a direct path... ... but enough to crash the Internet and land Mr. Morris (Jr.) a hefty fine and prison time. Earlier in that year, Internet Relay Chat was developed; something that has become one of the key factors in Internet usage today8.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the ten years since the Morris Worm the Internet has gone mainstream. After the ARPAnet ceased, the Internet had an explosion in usage and has become the giant that Americans know today. It has transformed from its humble beginnings, when it crashed on the first attempted remote LOGIN, into an economy driving, pop culture staple. Few people have heard of men such as Leonard Kleinrock, but none can say he has not contributed to America today. So, when you think about the Cold War, think about Sputnik and the Internet it created. Bibiography Hafner, Katie; Lyon, Matthew. Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Internet. Touchstone Books; 1998. Kristula, David. â€Å"The History of the Internet.† Network Solutions, Inc. â€Å"What is the History of the Internet?.† Segaller, Stephen. Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet. TV Books Inc.; 1999 Sterling, Bruce. â€Å"A Brief History of the Internet.†