Chapter 5: The Internet

 The Internet - Then

In 1970 Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPAnet) was created to advance computer interconnections. The interconnections established by ARPAnet soon caught the attention of other U.S. agencies, which saw the promise of using an electronic network for sharing information among research facilities and schools. Vinton Cerf “the father of the Internet,” and researchers at Stanford University and UCLA were developing packet switching technologies and transmission protocols that allow the Internet to function. In the 1980s, the National Science Foundation took on the task of designing a network that became the basis for the Internet, as it’s known today. At the same time, a group of scientists in the European Laboratory of Particle Physics (CERN), lead by Tim Berners-Lee, “the father of the World Wide Web,” was developing a system for worldwide interconnectivity that was later dubbed the World Wide Web.

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The Internet - Now

The Internet has gone from a largely unknown medium to one now used by over 1.5 billion people worldwide, including 227 million people in the United States, with most going online everyday.The Internet has evolved into a multidimensional resource. No longer is it just a place to view a web site or to send an email; it now contains different types of resources or components, each with different functions and purposes.

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The Internet - Later 

Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, and one of the founders of the Internet, talks about the 3 big issues facing the Internet and some of the exciting developments happening now.