The
Internet is a global system of interconnected
computer networks that use the standard
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a
network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of
information resources and services, such as the inter-linked
hypertext documents of the
World Wide Web (WWW) and the
infrastructure to support
email.
The origins of the Internet reach back to research of the 1960s, commissioned by the
United States government in collaboration with private commercial interests to build robust, fault-tolerant, and distributed computer networks. The funding of a new U.S.
backbone by the
National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. The
commercialization of what was by the 1990s an international network resulted in its popularization and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2011, more than 2.1 billion people — nearly a third of
Earth's population — use the services of the Internet.
[1]
Terminology
Internet is a short form of the technical term
internetwork,
[2] the result of interconnecting computer networks with special gateways or routers. The Internet is also often referred to as
the Net.
The term
the Internet, when referring to the entire global system of IP networks, has been treated as a
proper noun and written with an initial
capital letter. In the media and popular culture, a trend has also developed to regard it as a generic term or common noun and thus write it as "the internet", without capitalization. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized as a noun but not capitalized as an adjective.
[3][4]
The terms
Internet and
World Wide Web are often used in everyday speech without much distinction. However, the Internet and the
World Wide Web are not one and the same. The Internet establishes a global data communications system between computers. In contrast, the Web is one of the
services communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other
resources, linked by
hyperlinks and
URLs.
[5]
History
Early international collaborations on ARPANET were sparse. For various political reasons, European developers were concerned with developing the
X.25 networks.
[13] Notable exceptions were the
Norwegian Seismic Array (
NORSAR) in 1972, followed in 1973 by Sweden with satellite links to the
Tanum Earth Station and
Peter Kirstein's research group in the UK, initially at the
Institute of Computer Science, London University and later at
University College London.
[14]
T3 NSFNET Backbone, c. 1992
In 1982, the
Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was standardized and the concept of a world-wide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks called the Internet was introduced. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the
National Science Foundation (NSF) developed the
Computer Science Network (CSNET). In December 1974,
RFC 675 – Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term
internet, as a shorthand for
internetworking; later
RFCs repeat this use, so the word started out as an
adjective rather than the
noun it is today.
[15]
TCP/IP network access expanded again in 1986 when
NSFNET provided access to
supercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations, first at 56 kbit/s and later at 1.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s.
[16] Commercial
internet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge in the late 1980s and 1990s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. The Internet was commercialized in 1995 when NSFNET was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.
[17] The Internet started a rapid expansion to Europe and Australia in the mid to late 1980s
[18][19] and to Asia in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
[20]
Since the mid-1990s the Internet has had a tremendous impact on culture and commerce, including the rise of near instant communication by
email,
instant messaging,
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) "phone calls",
two-way interactive video calls, and the
World Wide Web[21] with its
discussion forums, blogs,
social networking, and
online shopping sites. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1-Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s, or more. The Internet continues to grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information and knowledge, commerce, entertainment and
social networking.
[22]
During the late 1990s, it was estimated that traffic on the public Internet grew by 100 percent per year, while the mean annual growth in the number of Internet users was thought to be between 20% and 50%.
[23] This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.
[24] As of 31 March 2011, the estimated total number of
Internet users was 2.095 billion (30.2% of world population).
[25] It is estimated that in 1993 the Internet carried only 1% of the information flowing through two-way
telecommunication, by 2000 this figure had grown to 51%, and by 2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was carried over the Internet.
[26]
Technology
Protocols
The communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components and a system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture. While the hardware can often be used to support other software systems, it is the design and the rigorous standardization process of the software architecture that characterizes the Internet and provides the foundation for its scalability and success. The responsibility for the architectural design of the Internet software systems has been delegated to the
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
[27] The IETF conducts standard-setting work groups, open to any individual, about the various aspects of Internet architecture. Resulting discussions and final standards are published in a series of publications, each called a
Request for Comments (RFC), freely available on the IETF web site. The principal methods of networking that enable the Internet are contained in specially designated RFCs that constitute the
Internet Standards. Other less rigorous documents are simply informative, experimental, or historical, or document the best current practices (BCP) when implementing Internet technologies.
The Internet standards describe a framework known as the
Internet protocol suite. This is a model architecture that divides methods into a layered system of protocols (
RFC 1122,
RFC 1123). The layers correspond to the environment or scope in which their services operate. At the top is the
application layer, the space for the application-specific networking methods used in software applications, e.g., a web browser program. Below this top layer, the
transport layer connects applications on
different hosts via the network (e.g.,
client–server model) with appropriate data exchange methods. Underlying these layers are the core networking technologies, consisting of two layers. The
internet layer enables computers to identify and locate each other via
Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and allows them to connect to one-another via intermediate (transit) networks. Last, at the bottom of the architecture, is a software layer, the
link layer, that provides connectivity between hosts on the same local network link, such as a local area network (
LAN) or a
dial-up connection. The model, also known as
TCP/IP, is designed to be independent of the underlying hardware, which the model therefore does not concern itself with in any detail. Other models have been developed, such as the
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, but they are not compatible in the details of description or implementation; many similarities exist and the TCP/IP protocols are usually included in the discussion of OSI networking.
The most prominent component of the Internet model is the Internet Protocol (IP), which provides addressing systems (
IP addresses) for computers on the Internet. IP enables internetworking and in essence establishes the Internet itself. IP Version 4 (
IPv4) is the initial version used on the first generation of today's Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed to address up to ~4.3 billion (10
9) Internet hosts. However, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to
IPv4 address exhaustion, which entered its final stage in 2011,
[28]when the global address allocation pool was exhausted. A new protocol version, IPv6, was developed in the mid-1990s, which provides vastly larger addressing capabilities and more efficient routing of Internet traffic.
IPv6 is currently in growing
deployment around the world, since Internet address registries (
RIRs) began to urge all resource managers to plan rapid adoption and conversion.
[29]
IPv6 is not interoperable with IPv4. In essence, it establishes a parallel version of the Internet not directly accessible with IPv4 software. This means software upgrades or translator facilities are necessary for networking devices that need to communicate on both networks. Most modern computer operating systems already support both versions of the Internet Protocol. Network infrastructures, however, are still lagging in this development. Aside from the complex array of physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is facilitated by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (e.g.,
peering agreements), and by technical specifications or protocols that describe how to exchange
data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is defined by its interconnections and routing policies.
Structure
Many computer scientists describe the Internet as a "prime example of a large-scale, highly engineered, yet highly complex system".
[31] The Internet is heterogeneous; for instance,
data transfer rates and physical characteristics of connections vary widely. The Internet exhibits "
emergent phenomena" that depend on its large-scale organization. For example, data transfer rates exhibit temporal
self-similarity. The principles of the routing and addressing methods for traffic in the Internet reach back to their origins the 1960s when the eventual scale and popularity of the network could not be anticipated. Thus, the possibility of developing alternative structures is investigated.
[32] The Internet structure was found to be highly robust
[33] to random failures and very vulnerable to high degree attacks.
[34]
Governance
The Internet is a
globally distributed network comprising many voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing body. However, to maintain interoperability, all technical and policy aspects of the underlying core infrastructure and the principal
name spaces are administered by the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), headquartered in
Marina del Rey, California. ICANN is the authority that coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers for use on the Internet, including
domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, application port numbers in the transport protocols, and many other parameters. Globally unified name spaces, in which names and numbers are uniquely assigned, are essential for the global reach of the Internet. ICANN is governed by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and other non-commercial communities. The government of the United States continues to have the primary role in approving changes to the
DNS root zone that lies at the heart of the domain name system.
[35] ICANN's role in coordinating the assignment of unique identifiers distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body on the global Internet. On 16 November 2005, the
World Summit on the Information Society, held in
Tunis, established the
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to discuss Internet-related issues.
Modern uses
The Internet allows greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the spread of unmetered high-speed connections. The Internet can be accessed almost anywhere by numerous means, including through
mobile Internet devices. mobile phones,
datacards,
handheld game consoles and
cellular routers allow users to connect to the Internet
wirelessly. Within the limitations imposed by small screens and other limited facilities of such pocket-sized devices, the services of the Internet, including email and the web, may be available. Service providers may restrict the services offered and mobile data charges may be significantly higher than other access methods.
Educational material at all levels from pre-school to post-doctoral is available from
websites. Examples range from
CBeebies, through school and high-school revision guides,
virtual universities, to access to top-end scholarly literature through the likes of
Google Scholar. For
distance education, help with
homework and other assignments, self-guided learning, whiling away spare time, or just looking up more detail on an interesting fact, it has never been easier for people to access educational information at any level from anywhere. The Internet in general and the
World Wide Web in particular are important enablers of both
formal and
informal education.
The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills has made
collaborative work dramatically easier, with the help of
collaborative software. Not only can a group cheaply communicate and share ideas but the wide reach of the Internet allows such groups more easily to form. An example of this is the
free software movement, which has produced, among other things,
Linux,
Mozilla Firefox, and
OpenOffice.org. Internet chat, whether in the form of an
IRC chat room or channel, via an
instant messaging system, or a
social networking website, allows colleagues to stay in touch in a very convenient way when working at their computers during the day. Messages can be exchanged even more quickly and conveniently than via email. These systems may allow files to be exchanged, drawings and images to be shared, or voice and video contact between team members.
Content management systems allow collaborating teams to work on shared sets of documents simultaneously without accidentally destroying each other's work. Business and project teams can share calendars as well as documents and other information. Such collaboration occurs in a wide variety of areas including scientific research, software development, conference planning, political activism and creative writing. Social and political collaboration is also becoming more widespread as both Internet access and
computer literacy spread.
The Internet allows computer users to
remotely access other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be. They may do this with or without
computer security, i.e. authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements. This is encouraging new ways of working from home, collaboration and information sharing in many industries. An
accountant sitting at home can
audit the books of a company based in another country, on a
server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working bookkeepers, in other remote locations, based on information emailed to them from offices all over the world. Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of private
leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice. An office worker away from their desk, perhaps on the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can access their emails, access their data using
cloud computing, or open a
remote desktopsession into their office PC using a secure
Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection on the Internet. This can give the worker complete access to all of their normal files and data, including email and other applications, while away from the office. This concept has been referred to among
system administrators as the Virtual Private Nightmare,
[36] because it extends the secure perimeter of a corporate network into remote locations and its employees' homes.
Services
Information
Many people use the terms
Internet and
World Wide Web, or just the
Web, interchangeably, but the two terms are not
synonymous. The
World Wide Web is a global set of
documents,
images and other resources, logically interrelated by
hyperlinks and referenced with
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). URIs symbolically identify services,
servers, and other databases, and the documents and resources that they can provide.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the main access protocol of the World Wide Web, but it is only one of the hundreds of communication protocols used on the Internet.
Web services also use HTTP to allow software systems to communicate in order to share and exchange business logic and data.
World Wide Web browser software, such as Microsoft's
Internet Explorer,
Mozilla Firefox,
Opera,
Apple's
Safari, and
Google Chrome, lets users navigate from one web page to another via hyperlinks embedded in the documents. These documents may also contain any combination of
computer data, including graphics, sounds,
text,
video,
multimedia and interactive content that runs while the user is interacting with the page.
Client-side software can include
animations,
games,
office applications and scientific demonstrations. Through
keyword-driven
Internet research using
search engines like
Yahoo! and
Google, users worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to printed media, books,
encyclopedias and traditional
libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled the decentralization of information on a large scale.
The Web has also enabled individuals and organizations to
publish ideas and information to a potentially large
audience online at greatly reduced expense and time delay. Publishing a web page, a blog, or building a website involves little initial
cost and many cost-free services are available. Publishing and maintaining large, professional web sites with attractive, diverse and up-to-date information is still a difficult and expensive proposition, however. Many individuals and some companies and groups use
web logs or blogs, which are largely used as easily updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage
staff to communicate advice in their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One example of this practice is
Microsoft, whose
product developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public's interest in their work. Collections of personal web pages published by large service providers remain popular, and have become increasingly sophisticated. Whereas operations such as
Angelfire and
GeoCities have existed since the early days of the Web, newer offerings from, for example, Facebook and MySpace currently have large followings. These operations often brand themselves as
social network services rather than simply as web page hosts.
Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and
e-commerce or the sale of products and services directly via the Web continues to grow.
When the Web began in the 1990s, a typical web page was stored in completed form on a web server, formatted in
HTML, ready to be sent to a user's browser in response to a request. Over time, the process of creating and serving web pages has become more automated and more dynamic. Websites are often created using
content management or
wiki software with, initially, very little content. Contributors to these systems, who may be paid staff, members of a club or other organization or members of the public, fill underlying databases with content using editing pages designed for that purpose, while casual visitors view and read this content in its final HTML form. There may or may not be editorial, approval and security systems built into the process of taking newly entered content and making it available to the target visitors.
Communication
Email is an important communications service available on the Internet. The concept of sending electronic text messages between parties in a way analogous to mailing letters or memos predates the creation of the Internet. Pictures, documents and other files are sent as
email attachments. Emails can be
cc-ed to multiple
email addresses.
Internet telephony is another common communications service made possible by the creation of the Internet.
VoIP stands for Voice-over-
Internet Protocol, referring to the protocol that underlies all Internet communication. The idea began in the early 1990s with
walkie-talkie-like voice applications for personal computers. In recent years many VoIP systems have become as easy to use and as convenient as a normal telephone. The benefit is that, as the Internet carries the voice traffic, VoIP can be free or cost much less than a traditional telephone call, especially over long distances and especially for those with always-on Internet connections such as
cable or
ADSL. VoIP is maturing into a competitive alternative to traditional telephone service. Interoperability between different providers has improved and the ability to call or receive a call from a traditional telephone is available. Simple, inexpensive VoIP network adapters are available that eliminate the need for a personal computer.
Voice quality can still vary from call to call, but is often equal to and can even exceed that of traditional calls. Remaining problems for VoIP include
emergency telephone number dialing and reliability. Currently, a few VoIP providers provide an emergency service, but it is not universally available. Traditional phones are line-powered and operate during a power failure; VoIP does not do so without a
backup power source for the phone equipment and the Internet access devices. VoIP has also become increasingly popular for gaming applications, as a form of communication between players. Popular VoIP clients for gaming include
Ventrilo and
Teamspeak.
Wii,
PlayStation 3, and
Xbox 360 also offer VoIP chat features.
Data transfer
File sharing is an example of transferring large amounts of data across the Internet. A
computer file can be emailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be uploaded to a website or
FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared location" or onto a
file server for instant use by colleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "
mirror" servers or
peer-to-peer networks. In any of these cases, access to the file may be controlled by user
authentication, the transit of the file over the Internet may be obscured by
encryption, and money may change hands for access to the file. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example, a credit card whose details are also passed – usually fully encrypted – across the Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by
digital signatures or by
MD5 or other message digests. These simple features of the Internet, over a worldwide basis, are changing the production, sale, and distribution of anything that can be reduced to a computer file for transmission. This includes all manner of print publications, software products, news, music, film, video, photography, graphics and the other arts. This in turn has caused seismic shifts in each of the existing industries that previously controlled the production and distribution of these products.
Streaming media is the real-time delivery of digital media for the immediate consumption or enjoyment by end users. Many radio and television broadcasters provide Internet feeds of their live audio and video productions. They may also allow time-shift viewing or listening such as Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features. These providers have been joined by a range of pure Internet "broadcasters" who never had on-air licenses. This means that an Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a television or radio receiver. The range of available types of content is much wider, from specialized technical
webcasts to on-demand popular multimedia services.
Podcasting is a variation on this theme, where – usually audio – material is downloaded and played back on a computer or shifted to a
portable media player to be listened to on the move. These techniques using simple equipment allow anybody, with little censorship or licensing control, to broadcast audio-visual material worldwide.
Digital media streaming increases the demand for network bandwidth. For example, standard image quality needs 1 Mbit/s link speed for SD 480p, HD 720p quality requires 2.5 Mbit/s, and the top-of-the-line HDX quality needs 4.5 Mbit/s for 1080p.
[37]
Webcams are a low-cost extension of this phenomenon. While some webcams can give full-frame-rate video, the picture either is usually small or updates slowly. Internet users can watch animals around an African waterhole, ships in the
Panama Canal, traffic at a local roundabout or monitor their own premises, live and in real time. Video
chat rooms and
video conferencing are also popular with many uses being found for personal webcams, with and without two-way sound. YouTube was founded on 15 February 2005 and is now the leading website for free streaming video with a vast number of users. It uses a
flash-based web player to stream and show video files. Registered users may upload an unlimited amount of video and build their own personal profile. YouTube claims that its users watch hundreds of millions, and upload hundreds of thousands of videos daily.
[38]
Access
After English (27%), the most requested languages on the
World Wide Web are Chinese (23%), Spanish (8%), Japanese (5%), Portuguese and German (4% each), Arabic, French and Russian (3% each), and Korean (2%).
[39] By region, 42% of the world's
Internet users are based in Asia, 24% in Europe, 14% in North America, 10% in
Latin America and the
Caribbean taken together, 6% in Africa, 3% in the Middle East and 1% in Australia/
Oceania.
[40] The Internet's technologies have developed enough in recent years, especially in the use of
Unicode, that good facilities are available for development and communication in the world's widely used languages. However, some glitches such as
mojibake (incorrect display of some languages' characters) still remain.
Common methods of
Internet access in homes include dial-up, landline
broadband (over
coaxial cable,
fiber optic or
copperwires),
Wi-Fi,
satellite and
3G/
4G technology
cell phones. Public places to use the Internet include libraries and
Internet cafes, where computers with Internet connections are available. There are also
Internet access points in many public places such as airport halls and coffee shops, in some cases just for brief use while standing. Various terms are used, such as "public Internet kiosk", "public access terminal", and "Web
payphone". Many hotels now also have public terminals, though these are usually fee-based. These terminals are widely accessed for various usage like ticket booking, bank deposit, online payment etc. Wi-Fi provides wireless access to computer networks, and therefore can do so to the Internet itself.
Hotspots providing such access include
Wi-Fi cafes, where would-be users need to bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or
PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A hotspot need not be limited to a confined location. A whole campus or park, or even an entire city can be enabled.
Grassroots efforts have led to
wireless community networks. Commercial Wi-Fi services covering large city areas are in place in London,
Vienna,
Toronto, San Francisco,
Philadelphia, Chicago and
Pittsburgh. The Internet can then be accessed from such places as a park bench.
[41] Apart from Wi-Fi, there have been experiments with proprietary mobile wireless networks like
Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular phone networks, and fixed wireless services. High-end mobile phones such as
smartphones in general come with Internet access through the phone network. Web browsers such as
Opera are available on these advanced handsets, which can also run a wide variety of other Internet software. More mobile phones have Internet access than PCs, though this is not as widely used.
[42] An Internet access provider and protocol matrix differentiates the methods used to get online.
In an American study in 2005, the percentage of men using the Internet was very slightly ahead of the percentage of women, although this difference reversed in those under 30. Men logged on more often, spent more time online, and were more likely to be
broadband users, whereas women tended to make more use of opportunities to communicate (such as email). Men were more likely to use the Internet to pay bills, participate in auctions, and for recreation such as downloading music and videos. Men and women were equally likely to use the Internet for shopping and banking.
[45] More recent studies indicate that in 2008, women significantly outnumbered men on most social networking sites, such as Facebook and
Myspace, although the ratios varied with age.
[46] In addition, women watched more streaming content, whereas men downloaded more.
[47] In terms of
blogs, men were more likely to blog in the first place; among those who blog, men were more likely to have a professional blog, whereas women were more likely to have a personal blog.
[48]
Overall Internet usage has seen tremendous growth. From 2000 to 2009, the number of Internet users globally rose from 394 million to 1.858 billion.
[49] By 2010, 22 percent of the world's population had access to computers with 1 billion
Google searches every day, 300 million Internet users reading blogs, and 2 billion videos viewed daily on
YouTube.
[50]
Social impact
The Internet has enabled entirely new forms of social interaction, activities, and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access.
Social networkingwebsites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have created new ways to socialize and interact. Users of these sites are able to add a wide variety of information to pages, to pursue common interests, and to connect with others. It is also possible to find existing acquaintances, to allow communication among existing groups of people. Sites like
LinkedIn foster commercial and business connections. YouTube and
Flickr specialize in users' videos and photographs.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the first generation is raised with widespread availability of Internet connectivity, bringing consequences and concerns in areas such as personal privacy and identity, and distribution of copyrighted materials. These "
digital natives" face a variety of challenges that were not present for prior generations.
The Internet has achieved new relevance as a political tool, leading to
Internet censorship by some states. The presidential campaign of
Howard Dean in 2004 in the United States was notable for its success in soliciting donation via the Internet. Many political groups use the Internet to achieve a new method of organizing in order to carry out their mission, having given rise to
Internet activism, most notably practiced by rebels in the
Arab Spring.
[51] Some governments, such as those of
Iran,
North Korea,
Myanmar, the People's Republic of China, and
Saudi Arabia, restrict what people in their countries can access on the Internet, especially political and religious content. This is accomplished through software that filters domains and content so that they may not be easily accessed or obtained without elaborate circumvention.
[52]
In Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, major Internet service providers have voluntarily, possibly to avoid such an arrangement being turned into law, agreed to restrict access to sites listed by authorities. While this list of forbidden URLs is supposed to contain addresses of only known child pornography sites, the content of the list is secret.
[53] Many countries, including the United States, have enacted laws against the possession or distribution of certain material, such as
child pornography, via the Internet, but do not mandate filtering software. There are many free and commercially available software programs, called
content-control software, with which a user can choose to block offensive websites on individual computers or networks, in order to limit a child's access to pornographic materials or depiction of violence.
The Internet has been a major outlet for leisure activity since its inception, with entertaining social experiments such as
MUDs and
MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related
Usenet groups receiving much traffic. Today, many
Internet forums have sections devoted to games and funny videos; short cartoons in the form of
Flash movies are also popular. Over 6 million people use blogs or message boards as a means of communication and for the sharing of ideas. The pornography and
gambling industries have taken advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other websites.
[54] Although many governments have attempted to restrict both industries' use of the Internet, in general this has failed to stop their widespread popularity.
[55]
One main area of leisure activity on the Internet is
multiplayer gaming.
[56] This form of recreation creates communities, where people of all ages and origins enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from
MMORPG to
first-person shooters, from
role-playing video games to
online gambling. While online gaming has been around since the 1970s, modern modes of online gaming began with subscription services such as
GameSpy and
MPlayer.
[57] Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of game play or certain games. Many people use the Internet to access and download music, movies and other works for their enjoyment and relaxation. Free and fee-based services exist for all of these activities, using centralized servers and distributed peer-to-peer technologies. Some of these sources exercise more care with respect to the original artists' copyrights than others.
Many people use the World Wide Web to access news, weather and sports reports, to plan and book vacations and to find out more about their interests. People use
chat, messaging and email to make and stay in touch with friends worldwide, sometimes in the same way as some previously had
pen pals. The Internet has seen a growing number of
Web desktops, where users can access their files and settings via the Internet.
Cyberslacking can become a drain on corporate resources; the average UK employee spent 57 minutes a day surfing the Web while at work, according to a 2003 study by Peninsula Business Services.
[58] Internet addiction disorder is excessive computer use that interferes with daily life. Some psychologists believe that Internet use has other
effects on individuals for instance interfering with the deep thinking that leads to true creativity.
[59]
Internet usage has been correlated to users' loneliness.
[60] Lonely people tend to use the Internet as an outlet for their feelings and to share their stories with others, such as in the "
I am lonely will anyone speak to me" thread.
Cybersectarianism is a new organizational form which involves: "highly dispersed small groups of practitioners that may remain largely anonymous within the larger social context and operate in relative secrecy, while still linked remotely to a larger network of believers who share a set of practices and texts, and often a common devotion to a particular leader. Overseas supporters provide funding and support; domestic practitioners distribute tracts, participate in acts of resistance, and share information on the internal situation with outsiders. Collectively, members and practitioners of such sects construct viable virtual communities of faith, exchanging personal testimonies and engaging in collective study via email, on-line chat rooms and web-based message boards."
[61]
Internet and political revolutions
The
New York Times suggested that
social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter helped people organise the political revolutions in Egypt where it helped certain classes of protesters organise protests, communicate grievances, and disseminate information.
[62]
The potential of the Internet as a civic tool of communicative power was thoroughly explored by
Simon R. B. Berdal in his thesis of 2004:
| “ | As the globally evolving Internet provides ever new access points to virtual discourse forums, it also promotes new civic relations and associations within which communicative power may flow and accumulate. Thus, traditionally ... national-embedded peripheries get entangled into greater, international peripheries, with stronger combined powers... The Internet, as a consequence, changes the topology of the "centre-periphery" model, by stimulating conventional peripheries to interlink into "super-periphery" structures, which enclose and "besiege" several centres at once. [63] | ” |
Berdal, therefore, extends the
Habermasian notion of the
Public sphere to the Internet, and underlines the inherent global and civic nature that intervowen Internet technologies provide. To limit the growing civic potential of the Internet, Berdal also notes how "self-protective measures" are put in place by those threatened by it:
| “ | If we consider China’s attempts to filter "unsuitable material" from the Internet, most of us would agree that this resembles a self-protective measure by the system against the growing civic potentials of the Internet. Nevertheless, both types represent limitations to "peripheral capacities". Thus, the Chinese government tries to prevent communicative power to build up and unleash (as the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising suggests, the government may find it wise to install "upstream measures"). Even though limited, the Internet is proving to be an empowering tool also to the Chinese periphery: Analysts believe that Internet petitions have influenced policy implementation in favour of the public’s online-articulated will ...[63] | ” |
Internet and philanthropy
The spread of low-cost internet access in developing countries has opened up new possibilities for
peer-to-peer charities, which allow individuals to contribute small amounts to charitable projects for other individuals. Websites such as
Donors Choose and
Global Giving now allow small-scale donors to direct funds to individual projects of their choice.
A popular twist on internet-based philanthropy is the use of
peer-to-peer lending for charitable purposes.
Kiva pioneered this concept in 2005, offering the first web-based service to publish individual loan profiles for funding. Kiva raises funds for local intermediary
microfinance organizations which post stories and updates on behalf of the borrowers. Lenders can contribute as little as $25 to loans of their choice, and receive their money back as borrowers repay. Kiva falls short of being a pure peer-to-peer charity, in that loans are disbursed before being funded by lenders and borrowers do not communicate with lenders themselves.
[64][65]
However, the recent spread of cheap internet access in
developing countries has made genuine international person-to-person philanthropy increasingly feasible. In 2009 the US-based nonprofit
Zidisha tapped into this trend to offer the first person-to-person
microfinance platform to link lenders and borrowers across international borders without intermediaries. Inspired by interactive websites such as
Facebook and
eBay,
Zidisha facilitates direct dialogue and microlending transactions between individual web users worldwide and computer-literate, low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Zidisha members can fund loans for as little as a dollar, which the borrowers then use to develop business activities that improve their families' incomes while repaying loans to the members with interest.
Zidisha borrowers access the internet via public cybercafes, donated laptops in village schools, and even smart phones, then create their own profile pages through which they share photos and information about themselves and their businesses. As they repay their loans, borrowers continue to share updates and dialogue with lenders via their profile pages. This direct web-based connection allows
Zidisha members themselves to take on many of the communication and recording tasks traditionally performed by local organizations, bypassing geographic barriers and dramatically reducing the cost of
microfinance services to the entrepreneurs.
[66]
See also
References
- ^ Internet World Stats, updated 31 March 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-08.
- ^ "Internet, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (Draft ed.). March 2009. Retrieved 2010-10-26. "Shortened < INTERNETWORK n., perhaps influenced by similar words in -net"
- ^ "internet or Internet", Word Reference Forum, 6 October 2005
- ^ "7.76 Terms like 'web' and 'Internet'", Chicago Manual of Style, University of Chicago, 16th edition
- ^ "Links". HTML 4.01 Specification. World Wide Web Consortium. HTML 4.01 Specification. Retrieved 2008-08-13. "[T]he link (or hyperlink, or Web link) [is] the basic hypertext construct. A link is a connection from one Web resource to another. Although a simple concept, the link has been one of the primary forces driving the success of the Web."
- ^ Celebrating 40 years of the net, by Mark Ward, Technology correspondent, BBC News, October 29, 2009
- ^ "A Technical History of CYCLADES", Technical Histories of the Internet & other Network Protocols, Computer Science Department, University of Texas Austin
- ^ "The Cyclades Experience: Results and Impacts", Zimmermann, H., Proc. IFIP'77 Congress, Toronto, August 1977, pp. 465–469
- ^ A Chronicle of Merit's Early History, John Mulcahy, 1989, Merit Network, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- ^ "Roads and Crossroads of Internet History" by Gregory Gromov. 1995
- ^ Hafner, Katie (1998). Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-68-483267-4.
- ^ Ronda Hauben (2001). From the ARPANET to the Internet. Retrieved May 28, 2009.
- ^ "Events in British Telecomms History". Events in British TelecommsHistory. Archived from the original on April 5, 2003. Retrieved November 25, 2005.
- ^ "NORSAR and the Internet". NORSAR. Retrieved June 5, 2009.
- ^ Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, Stephen Wolff (2003). A Brief History of Internet. Retrieved May 28, 2009.
- ^ NSFNET: A Partnership for High-Speed Networking, Final Report 1987-1995, Karen D. Frazer, Merit Network, Inc., 1995
- ^ "Retiring the NSFNET Backbone Service: Chronicling the End of an Era", Susan R. Harris and Elise Gerich, ConneXions, Vol. 10, No. 4, April 1996
- ^ Ben Segal (1995). A Short History of Internet Protocols at CERN.
- ^ Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE)
- ^ "Internet History in Asia". 16th APAN Meetings/Advanced Network Conference in Busan. Retrieved December 25, 2005.
- ^ How the web went world wide, Mark Ward, Technology Correspondent, BBC News. Retrieved 24 January 2011
- ^ "Brazil, Russia, India and China to Lead Internet Growth Through 2011". Clickz.com. Retrieved May 28, 2009.
- ^ Coffman, K. G; Odlyzko, A. M. (1998-10-02) (PDF). The size and growth rate of the Internet. AT&T Labs. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
- ^ Comer, Douglas (2006). The Internet book. Prentice Hall. p. 64. ISBN 0132335530.
- ^ "World Internet Users and Population Stats". Internet World Stats. Miniwatts Marketing Group. 2011-06-22. Retrieved 2011-06-23.
- ^ "The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information", Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (April 2011), Science, 332(6025), 60-65.
- ^ "IETF Home Page". Ietf.org. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
- ^ Huston, Geoff. "IPv4 Address Report, daily generated". Retrieved 2009-05-20.
- ^ "Notice of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) Address Depletion" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-08-07.
- ^ A. L. Barab´asi, R. Albert; Barabási, Albert-László (2002). "Statistical mechanics of complex networks". Rev. Mod. Phys 74: 47–94. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.74.47.
- ^ Walter Willinger, Ramesh Govindan, Sugih Jamin, Vern Paxson, and Scott Shenker (2002). Scaling phenomena in the Internet, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, suppl. 1, 2573–2580
- ^ Jesdanun, Anick (16 April 2007). "Internet Makeover? Some argue it's time". Seattletimes.nwsource.com. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ R. Cohen, K. Erez, D. ben-Avraham, S. Havlin (2000). "Resilience of the Internet to random breakdowns". Phys. Rev. Lett 85: 4625.
- ^ R. Cohen, K. Erez, D. ben-Avraham, S. Havlin; Erez, K; Ben-Avraham, D; Havlin, S (2001)."Breakdown of the Internet under intentional attack". Phys. Rev. Lett 86 (16): 3682–5.doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.3682. PMID 11328053.
- ^ "Bush administration annexes internet", Kieren McCarthy, The Register, 1 July 2005
- ^ "The Virtual Private Nightmare: VPN". Librenix. 2004-08-04. Retrieved 2010-07-21.
- ^ Morrison, Geoff (2010-11-18). "What to know before buying a 'connected' TV - Technology & science - Tech and gadgets - Tech Holiday Guide - msnbc.com". MSNBC. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ "YouTube Fact Sheet". YouTube, LLC. Archived from the original on 2010-07-04. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
- ^ Internet World Stats, updated for 30 June 2010. Retrieved 20 Feb 2011.
- ^ World Internet Usage Statistics News and Population Stats updated for 30 June 2010. Retrieved 20 Feb 2011.
- ^ Pasternak, Sean B. (2006-03-07). "Toronto Hydro to Install Wireless Network in Downtown Toronto". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ "By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide", according a forecast in "Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond", Gartner, Inc., 13 January 2010
- ^ Cowie, James. "Egypt Leaves the Internet". Renesys. Archived from the original on 2011-01-28. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
- ^ "Egypt severs internet connection amid growing unrest". BBC News. 2011-01-28.
- ^ How men and women use the Internet Pew Research Center December 28, 2005
- ^ "Rapleaf Study on Social Network Users".[dead link]
- ^ "Women Ahead Of Men In Online Tv, Dvr, Games, And Social Media.". Entrepreneur.com. 2008-05-01. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ "Technorati's State of the Blogosphere". Technorati. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
- ^ Internet users graphs, Market Information and Statistics, International Telecommunications Union
- ^ http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/71940/google-earth-demonstrates-how-technology-benefits-ris-civil-society-govt
- ^ "The Arab Uprising's Cascading Effects". Miller-mccune.com. 23 February 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
- ^ Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace, Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain (eds), MIT Press, April 2010, ISBN 0-262-51435-4, ISBN 978-0-262-51435-4
- ^ "Finland censors anti-censorship site". The Register. 2008-02-18. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
- ^ "Internet Pornography Statistics", Jerry Ropelato, Top Ten Reviews, 2006
- ^ "Do It Yourself! Amateur Porn Stars Make Bank", Russell Goldman, ABC News, 22 January 2008
- ^ "Top Online Game Trends of the Decade", Dave Spohn, About.com, 15 December 2009
- ^ "Internet Game Timeline: 1963 - 2004", Dave Spohn, About.com, 2 June 2011
- ^ "Net abuse hits small city firms". Edinburgh: News.scotsman.com. 11 September 2003. Retrieved 2009-08-07.[dead link]
- ^ The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr, W. W. Norton, 7 June 2010, 276 pp., ISBN 0393072223, ISBN 978-0393072228
- ^ Carole Hughes, Boston College. "The Relationship Between Internet Use and Loneliness Among College Students". Boston College. Retrieved 2011-08-11.
- ^ Patricia M. Thornton, "The New Cybersects: Resistance and Repression in the Reform era. “ In Elizabeth Perry and Mark Selden, eds., Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (second edition) (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 149-50.
- ^ Kirkpatrick, David D. (2011-02-09). "Wired and Shrewd, Young Egyptians Guide Revolt". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Berdal, S.R.B. (2004) (PDF), Public deliberation on the Web: A Habermasian inquiry into online discourse, Oslo: University of Oslo
- ^ Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems, by David Roodman, Center for Global Development, Oct. 2, 2009, as accessed Jan. 2 & 16, 2010
- ^ Confusion on Where Money Lent via Kiva Goes, by Stephanie Strom, in The New York Times, Nov. 8, 2009, as accessed Jan. 2 & 16, 2010
- ^ "Zidisha Set to "Expand" in Peer-to-Peer Microfinance", Microfinance Focus, Feb 2010
External links
Organizations
Articles, books, and journals
- First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal on the Internet established in 1996 as a Great Cities Initiative of the University Library of theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, ISSN: 1396-0466
- Rise of the Network Society, Manual Castells, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996 (1st ed) and 2009 (2nd ed), ISBN 978-1-4051-9686-4
- "The Internet: Changing the Way We Communicate" in America's Investment in the Future, National Science Foundation, Arlington, Va. USA, 2000
- “Lessons from the History of the Internet”, Manuel Castells, in The Internet Galaxy, Ch. 1, pp 9–35, Oxford University Press, 2001, ISBN13: 978-0-19-925577-1 ISBN10: 0-19-925577-6
- "Media Freedom Internet Cookbook" by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Vienna, 2004
- "How Much Does The Internet Weigh?", by Stephen Cass, Discover, 2007
- "Mapping a medusa: The Internet spreads its tentacles", Julie Rehmeyer, Science News, Vol. 171, No. 25, pp. 387–388, 23 June 2007
