What is the role of the Internet?

The main role can be summarized as network information services (WWW), e-mail (E-MAIL), online discussion (MAILING LISTS, NEWSGROUP, BBS), computer system remote login (TELNET), file transfer (FTP) and other aspects.

The Internet (Internet) is a set of global information resources. There is a rough statement that the INTERNET is due to many small networks (sub-networks) interconnected into a logical network, each sub-network is connected to a number of computers (hosts). Internet to mutual exchange of information resources for the purpose of, based on a number of *** with the same protocols, and through a number of routers and the Internet of the public **** become, he is an information resource and resource *** enjoy the collection. collection. Computer network is only a carrier of information dissemination, and the superiority and usefulness of the INTERNET is in itself.

Past

Internet first came from the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DARPA (Defense advanced Research Projects Agency) predecessor ARPA established ARPAnet, which was put into use in 1969. From the 1960s, ARPA began to provide funding to the computer science departments of universities within the United States and a number of private limited companies to promote research on computer networks based on packet-switching technology. 1968, ARPA for the ARPAnet network project, the project is based on the leading idea: the network must be able to withstand failures to maintain the normal operation of the network in the event of war, when a part of the network due to damage to the network, the network will be able to maintain the normal operation of the network, the network will be able to withstand failures to maintain the normal operation of the network. In the event of war, when one part of the network is incapacitated by an attack, the rest of the network should be able to maintain normal communications. Initially, ARPAnet was mainly used for military research purposes, and it had five main features:

(1) support for resource ****enjoyment;

(2) the use of distributed control technology;

(3) the use of packet-switching technology;

(4) the use of communication control processors;

(5) the use of hierarchical network communication protocols.

In 1972, ARPAnet met the public for the first time at the first International Conference on Computer Backend Communications and verified the feasibility of packet-switching technology, thus making ARPAnet the symbol of the birth of modern computer networks. Another major technical contribution of ARPAnet was the development and use of the TCP/IP protocol cluster.

In 1980, ARPA invested in adding TCP/IP to the kernel of UNIX (BSD version 4.1), and after BSD version 4.2, the TCP/IP protocol became the standard communication module of the UNIX operating system.

In 1982, the Internet was formed by the merger of ARPAnet, MILNET, and several other computer networks. As the early backbone of the Internet, ARPAnet experimented with and laid the foundation for the Internet's existence and development, and better solved a series of theoretical and technological problems of interconnecting heterogeneous machine networks.

In 1983, ARPAnet was split into two parts: ARPAnet and MILNET for purely military use. in January of that year, ARPA took the TCP/IP protocol as the standard protocol of ARPAnet, and then, people called this interconnection network with ARPAnet as the backbone network the Internet, and the TCP/IP cluster was studied, tested, and developed in the Internet. The TCP/IP protocol cluster was studied, tested, and improved into an easy-to-use and efficient protocol cluster in the Internet. At the same time, the creation and vigorous development of LANs and other WANs played an important role in the further development of the Internet. Among them, the most notable is the U.S. National Science Foundation NSF (National Science Foundation) to establish the U.S. National Science Foundation network NSFnet.

1986, NSF established six supercomputer centers, in order to enable the nation's scientists and engineers to *** enjoy these supercomputer facilities. NSF established its own computer network, NSFnet, based on a cluster of TCP/IP protocols.NSF established computer wide area networks (WANs) throughout the country, divided by region, and connected these regional networks to the supercomputing centers, and finally interconnected the supercomputing centers. The regional network is generally composed of a number of geographically confined to a certain area, in the management of the computer belonging to a certain organization or in the economic interests of the same users interconnected into a high-speed data lines connecting computers in the main communication nodes of the regional network constitutes the backbone of the NSFnet, so that, when a user's computer and a certain region after the connection, it can use the facilities of any supercomputing center, can be connected to the network with the facilities of the supercomputing center, and can be connected to the network with the supercomputing center. When a user's computer is connected to an area, it can use the facilities of any supercomputing center, communicate with any user on the network, and also obtain a large amount of information and data provided by the network. This success led to NSFnet replacing ARPAnet in June 1990 as the backbone of the Internet.

Now

In the past ten years, with the development of social science and technology, culture and economy, especially the great development of computer network technology and communication technology, with the trend of transition of the human society from the industrial society to the information society becoming more and more obvious, the people's awareness of information, and more and more emphasis on the development and use of information resources, all these strongly stimulate the development of ARPAnet and NSFnet, and make the ARPAnet and NSFnet to become the backbone of the Internet. NSFnet development, so that the number of hosts and users connected to these two networks increased dramatically, in 1988, the number of computers connected by the NSFnet surged to 56,000, and since then every year more than 2 to 3 times the alarming rate of forward development, in 1994, the number of hosts on the Internet reached 3.2 million, connected to the world's 35,000 computer networks. Now, the Internet has more than 5,000,000 users, the number of monthly growth is still 10-15% forward, experts predict that by 1998, Internet users will exceed 100 million, to 2000, the world will have more than 1 million networks, 100 million hosts and more than 1 billion users. Today's Internet is no longer a field for computer personnel and military departments to conduct scientific research, but has become a development and use of information resources covering the global information ocean. On the Internet, according to the classification of the business engaged in, including advertising agencies, airlines, agricultural production companies, art, navigation equipment, bookstores, chemical industry, communications, computers, consulting, entertainment, finance and trade, all kinds of stores, hotels and so on more than 100 categories, covering all aspects of social life, constituting a microcosm of the information society. In 1995, the Internet began to be applied in the commercial field on a large scale. That year, the United States Internet business revenue amounted to 1 billion U.S. dollars, is expected in 1996 will reach 1.8 billion U.S. dollars. Provide online service providers from the original like America Online and ProdigyService such as computer companies to the development of like AT & amp; T, MCI, Pacific Bell and other communications operating companies to participate in. Due to the huge demand generated by business applications, from modems to Internet applications such as Web servers and browsers, the market is very hot. While the Internet is booming, the product structure itself is also changing with the shift of user's needs. 1994, all Internet software was almost exclusively TCP/IP protocol guaranteed, and what people needed at that time was a network architecture that could be compatible with the TCP/IP protocol; nowadays, the center of gravity of Internet has shifted to specific applications, such as using the WWW to advertise or conduct on-line trade. Web is the fastest growing application on the Internet, its users have surged from less than 4 million in 1994 to 10 million in 1995. the number of Web sites in 1995 to thirty thousand. The Internet has become the largest international computer network. Today, the Internet has been connected to more than 60,000 networks, officially connected to 86 countries, electronic mail can reach more than 150 countries, more than 4.8 million hosts through which it is connected together, the user has more than 25 million, every day the flow of information to reach trillion bits (terrabyte) more than the monthly electronic mail exceeded 1 billion. At the same time, the Internet application industry penetrated into various fields, from academic research to stock trading, from school education to entertainment games, from on-line information retrieval to on-line home shopping, etc., have made great progress. According to statistics, at present, in the Internet domain name distribution, .com -- that is, the largest proportion of business, 41%; .edu -- (science and education) has been relegated to the second line, 30% of the share. The business sector accounted for 75% of the Internet's growth last year. However, in some Asian countries, the authorities are trying to block their own networks from the international network, and their blocking network technology exceeds that of developed countries. This is undoubtedly a reversal of history.

Future

From the current situation, the Internet market still has great potential for development, the future of its applications will cover a wide range of areas from the office **** enjoy information to marketing, services. In addition, the e-trade brought about by the Internet is changing the traditional mode of today's business activities, and the convenience and wide range of interconnections provided by the Internet will surely have an impact on all aspects of social life in the future.

However, the Internet also has its inherent shortcomings, such as the lack of overall planning and design of the network, unclear network topology, and the lack of fault tolerance and reliability, which are critical for many applications in the business world. Security is another major factor that plagues the development of Internet users. Although there are now a number of programs and protocols to ensure that the Internet online business transactions are carried out reliably, but the real applicable and will dominate the market technology and products are not yet clear. In addition, the Internet is a centerless network. All of these issues have hindered the development of the Internet to a certain extent, only to solve these problems, the Internet can be better development.