The Internet: a definition

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a communication network built of inter-connected computer.
Every computer sharing information through the Internet is a node of the network transferring information via communication protocols.

Except instead of holding little rocks tight against the big round rock, the Internet was designed to hold smaller networks together, turning them into one big network.

The Internet isn’t a thing. It’s an agreement.
The Internet is a way for all the things that call themselves networks to coexist and work together. It’s an inter-network. Literally.

What makes the Net inter is the fact that it’s just a protocol, the Internet Protocol, to be exact. A protocol is an agreement about how things work together.

This protocol doesn’t specify what people can do with the network, what they can build on its edges, what they can say, who gets to talk. The protocol simply says: If you want to swap bits with others, here’s how. If you want to put a computer or a cell phone or a refrigerator on the network, you have to agree to the agreement that is the Internet.

World of Ends

What is the purpose of the Internet?

It was created to provide an alternative communication network in case of destruction of the traditional ones because of nuclear attacks. Internet routers would direct the communication flow through alternate, working, routes.

Who did create the Internet?

The Internet is the result of a long period of collaboration among people in the United States government and the American university community.

First proposed by a MIT researches in 1962, the Internet was brought online in 1969 by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)

What can I do with the Internet?

The most popular services available on the Internet are: the World Wide Web (the Web) and the electronic mail (the email).

But actually there are many protocols which allow different applications of the Internet, the following is list of the most popular protocols:

• TCP/IP
• HTTP
• FTP
• POP3
• SMTP

This is a list of the most used Internet services and applications:

• e-mail and mailing lists
• the World Wide Web and Weblogs
• Instant messaging (ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN messenger, etc.)
• file sharing
• Usenet newsgroups
• Web radio and Webcasts