Evolution of the Internet

Many years ago a network was born having several computers connected and now, that same network has millions of computers connected at all times, it's called the Internet. This paper will explain the evolution and growth of the Internet. It's like a plague growing across the world, signs of its growth are seen everywhere. The Internet was started as an experiment to test networks to try and develop a network that could survive a nuclear attack. While the net has never needed to survive a nuclear blast its design has proven again and again how robust it is. It has with stood many attacks from construction to lightning blowing up a router. The network has always recovered and bypassed the problem.

The Internet began as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) during the cold war in 1969. It was developed by the US Department of Defense's (DOD) research people in conjunction with a number of military contractors and universities to explore the possibility of a communication network that could survive a nuclear attack. It continued simply because the DOD, DOD's contractors, and the universities found that it provided a very convenient way to communicate. The ARPANET was a success from the very beginning. Although originally designed to allow scientists to share data and access remote computers, e-mail quickly becomes the most popular application. The ARPANET became a high-speed digital post-office as people used it to collaborate on research projects and discuss topics of various interests. By 1971 the ARPANET grew to 23 hosts connecting universities and government research centers around the country. In 1973 the first international connections were made with England and Norway. Growth continued at a steady pace, by 1987 there were over 10,000 hosts, then by 1989 it had exploded to 100,000. Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf are key members of a team which created Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the common language of all Internet computers. For the first time the loose collection of networks which made up the ARPANET is seen as an Internet, and the Internet as we know it today is born. The mid-80s marks a boom in the personal computer and super-minicomputer industries. The combination of inexpensive desktop machines and powerful, network-ready servers allows many companies to join the Internet for the first time. Corporations begin to use the Internet to communicate with each other and with their customer's. The general public gets its first vague hint of how networked computers can be used in daily life as the commercial version of the ARPANET goes online.

By 1988 the Internet is an essential tool for communications, however it also begins to create concerns about privacy and security in the digital world. New words, such as hacker, cracker and electronic break-in,