4.3 INTERNET

The Internet is a collection of networking technologies, such as Ethernet, SLIP, PPP and oth-

ers that allows computers to communicate and exchange information. The concept of the Internet

began with ARPANET which was funded as a Department of Defense project in 197x. In 198x

the Internet was developed, and began to replace the ARPANET. By the late 1980s the Internet

was widespread between most universities, colleges, major companies and government agencies

around the world. Finally, the Internet hit widespread public usage by the mid 1990s. Today it is

the accepted defacto standard network in the world.

Originally the Internet was used to exchange email and files. It was common to anonymously

log into a remote computer, with FTP, and upload and download files. In the early 1990s a number

of new applications were developed to make interaction with remote computers easier. For exam-

ple ’archie’ made it easy to search for files by names. ’wais’ and ’gopher’ were early predecessors

to ’mosiac’ which then lead to ’netscape’. At that time (about 1993) the face of the internet started

to change, thanks to the World Wide Web (WWW). Non-professional users of the internet started

to arrive through the America On-Line (AOL) service. This also coincided with the first major

case of ’spam’, where a legal firm mass mailed advertisements for immigration services. Finally,

by the mid 1990s microsoft stopped referring to the Internet as a ’fad’. Today, most people and