Free Essay On The Development Of The Internet

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One of the most important and useful inventions of all time is the creation of the internet, the one technological device without which life is hard to imagine in the present day. Over the time of its use and influence on the masses, different views have evolved regarding the internet. There is one school of thought who assumes that the internet is a device that gives mankind the power to access any form of information sitting at home or at work and giving them the freedom to use it as they wish and also as a means of aiding in the development and generation of economy. The other school of thought holds an opposite opinion where they state that the internet is an overrated technology that is used by capitalists, and it enhances aspects of social inequality and increases disparities between people.
Understanding the development of the internet is crucial in gaining knowledge of the need due to which it was created and how it has served humanity since its conception.
The history of the development of internet traces back to 1958, with the creation of the DARPA by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is known as the Advanced Research Project Agency ARPA. The creation of ARPA was to strengthen defense and military services after the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union. When the success of DARPA was culminated in solidifying the defense of the country and to form a proper channel of surveillance in the country, the hold of this technology was further extended towards creating a system of linking and sharing information in between computers and getting mutually connected in order to enhance the usage of it. DARPA or ARPA then began to link and share the computers on a national basis. (DARPA, n.d).
In 1961, Leonard Kleinrock suggested in a written paper about ARPANET and how it could be utilized on a larger scale in a paper he wrote. (Live Science, 2015). This paper carried the very basic methodology of how information and data could be packed into a small pocket and then transmitted further ahead. This very principle was then used later on in the working of the internet, of how information can travel in small pockets over large distances and can be shared by people. This development by Kleinrock along with other innovators such as J.C.R Licklider and Paul Baron was the main ideology that was carried forward in building the technology used today for social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Email and other websites that are used so commonly today.
1965 was the year of the internet experimentation, which was carried out by Lawrence G. Roberts and Thomas Merill. This was the first time in history when a far reached connection between two computers was established and proved successful as well. With the aid of a telephone line, which connected MIT labs back in Massachusetts to System Development Corporations located in Santa Monica, California. The use of ‘packet-switching’ technology used by these two inventors was illustrated in the connection made between the two computers over a telephone line that proved that long distance connections can be made with the help of the internet and large volumes of data can be conveyed over these distances. This phenomenon was referred to as two computers ‘talking to each other’ in the history of all time. (History of Information, 2015).
The turning point in the earlier invention of the internet came in 1968 with the creation of the final version of the IMP- Interface Message Processor and its designs. Bolt Beranek and Newman were granted contracts for the further enhance and build the IMP network. The basic idea was to formulate a plan in order to get various hosts to interact and connect with each other and the model created was the first of its kind to project an idea that applies. It was then supplemented and worked on.
In 1969, then the first networking switch and the first piece of network equipment called the IMP were transferred to the University of California Los Angeles. The second piece of equipment was installed at Stanford Research Institute SRI where the connection was supposed to be made. Leonard Kleinrock sent the very first internet message from UCLA. This message not only meant that a connection was made but also ensured that this was to be the moral fiber for developing the internet, in the end. The first message that was sent from this was LO which login attempt was, however; it was never answered back, and the route was incomplete because the system at SRI crashed.
1971 was the era of electronic mail development. Ray Tomlinson was the man behind the genius invention. This was the first time when a messaging system was developed over the internet and to test whether other networks could receive and reply to those messages. The first email was a test email that was entirely gibberish however, the recipient received it, and that proved its success as an invention.
Next came the development of the TCP/IP BY Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn. The purpose of its creation was connectivity in the form of four layers from lowest to the highest that was used to specify how information was supposed to be addressed, formatted, received and which routes would it be guided through to reach its destination.
In the year 1974, the world internet was conceived and then used widely as the major networking phenomenon, which was shortened from internetworking to internet. ARPANET was commercialized for the very first time, and Telenet was launched as the first major ISP provider of the world. (Sputnik News, 2014).
Following this, 1976 was the year of Ethernet, which was conceived by Robert Metcalfe. Metcalfe wanted something on the internet that could make its services widespread, and it could be able to connect hundreds of different computers together and cover a larger area. He developed the Ethernet, which was something like a local area network that spanned one kilometer of range of internet and could transfer data to it. (Home, 2015).
The next major intervention came in the 1990s with the development of the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee was the inventor of the World Wide Web in 1989 when the first connection over the internet was formerly established around twenty years ago. Tim worked to produce three major basics of the internet that are in use till today which mark the fundamentals of the internet. These are HTML, URI, and HTTP. HTML, the hypertext markup language was the basic formatting of the web, which was used to connect and link to other web pages. URI, Uniform Resource Identifier was the unique address to the various sources available on the internet. HTTP, HyperText Transfer Protocol allows one to retrieve the resources from wherever they are linked to any area on the web. (Web Foundation, 2015). Tim himself designed the very first web page at the end of the year 1990. With the invention of these, many people joined the web, and its sources grew exponentially. It marked the most widely used medium for sharing and usage by a large majority of internet users all over the globe with the spread of the internet. (Internet Society, 2015).
In 1993, the first internet browser ever was created. It was the main medium of conveying information and being a single source from where other sources could be located and then rendered of use. The first browser was named Lynx. Followed by it were Netscape, Opera, IE, MAC IE, Mozilla, Chimera, Phoenix, Firefox, Safari, Maxthon, Lunascape, and Netsurf.
The scope of the internet was widened when in 1994, the online shopping phenomenon was launched, and it marked the time of great progress of the internet. There were various shipping and by air services launched for overseas shoppers and even fast food places opened up their websites and pages for home deliveries and access to the menu on the internet. The progress of the internet was quite rapid from this point onward. (Zelster, 2015).
In 1993, the internet began to use the mp3 format for songs and audio entertainment, which was a step away from the use of CDs and audio cassettes in the past. Users could download the media from the internet and save it on their computers, and this was true of uploading content via mp3.
In 2010, the crew of the International Space Station received direct access to the internet, which made global satellite access easier. The biggest achievement, however, was the use of internet for social media. In order to shrink the world from what it was getting to with the help of the internet, social media sites such as Friendster, LinkedIn, Orkut, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many other social media sites opened up which have made connection between people easier than ever. (Digital Trends, 2014).
The internet is by all means the most important invention of all times and its use has been very critical of people at all times, whether it was used in defense of a nation or only used to connect people living far off, it has become an important part of our lives and will remain being one as it has for the past century.

References

Darpa. History and Development. Web, N.d. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Digital Trends. History of Social Networking. Web. 2014. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Home. Birth of the Web. Web. 2015. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Internet Society. History of the Internet. Web. 2015. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Live Science. Internet History. Web. 2015. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Sputnik News. InfoGraphics. Web.2014. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Web Foundation. Vision/ History of the web. Web. 2008. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015
Zelster, Lenny. Web History. Web. 2015. N.pag. 20 Feb, 2015