What is the internet?

The internet is a global network of computers. There are many different types of computer on the internet – pc’s, macintosh and many others – many of these computers are parts of smaller networks, which are also just as varied. The in-ternet is based upon a common language which allows all these computers to talk to each other. Beside this common language, the internet is actually no more than a huge collection of ca-bles, computers and software. These computers are connected together in a continuous net. Most of the physical connections consist of optical cables or telephone lines which are either bought or leased from telephone companies. In some cases signals are transmitted via satellite links. It is difficult to find the internet in the physical world. Many of the connections are also used for other purposes, like ordinary voice telephone calls. And many of the computers are only at-tached to the internet occasionally. The easiest way to understand the internet is to use it. The internet is a decentralised network of com-puters or cables with no central connections be-ing so important that if they are put out of action the entire net stops. Even if part of the net stops working, the rest can continue uninterrupted. All communications simply find a way around the damaged area. You will often hear that the internet is nothing more than anarchy. In one way this is correct, because there is no one institution which owns it, but in practice a few institutions do control cer-tain aspects of it. The owners of each individual network, usually companies or internet service providers, take decisions about their own net-works. So no-one can make rules or regulations for the entire internet. But owners of individual networks can control their own part of the net. But this does not count for very much as it is nearly impossible to check that these rules are not being broken. Even though the internet really became a mass medium in the middle of the 90’s, its roots go back to the sixties. The initiative to set it up came from the american defence establishment, which started a research project with the aim of linking different types of computer together in a large network. The autumn of 1969 saw the first two computers on two american university cam-puses connected together. Slowly more and more computers were attached to the network.

Michael Maardt, mm@knowware.dk 
Sovenget 1, 3100 Hornbek, Denmark

 www.knowwareglobal.com

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Michael Maardt, mm@knowware.dk 
Sovenget 1, 3100 Hornbek, Denmark

 www.knowwareglobal.com