Internet, How it Began!

The Internet started as ARPANET, which was a project for the United States Department of Defense, the objective of the project was to connect sever sites of super computers, so if one was destroyed, the remain computers would still work. This project was successful, so other computer sites in universities, government departments, and large corporations began connecting to the network. The network began to grow, technicians, scientists, and officials were able to communicate, and share information easily. Eventually other countries joined the network, expanding the network even more. This helped give the Internet its name, international network, or Internet.

Who Uses The Internet?

Early in the early 1997, it is estimated that 25 million to 50 million people used the internet world wide, that’s around 1.5% of the world population. Although the internet had limited capabilities at the time many people found it innovative and exciting. Most of the people only sent e-mails over the Internet, but more people started to use it because it started to be able to include images with the text. Most people who use the Internet spoke English (43% of people), but people who spoke Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and German, came in second (around 8.5 percent of people each). Today, around 2,439 million people worldwide use the internet, around 34.8% of the population.

Viruses

With so many people using the internet, there were some people using it for bad things such as stealing information or money. One of the first computer viruses was the Creeper, starting at 1971, the virus infected ARPNET. The Creeper was an experiment of a self replicating program that infected many computers across the ARPNET network. The first anti-virus program made soon after, called The Reaper was designed to get rid of infections like the Creeper. Viruses now have many ways to infect and attack someone’s computer. One type of virus is called a Trojan Horse, this virus is disguised as something you might want to download like a picture, video, or software, but in reality it is a virus that will infect your computer ones you install it. These types of viruses can be avoided by researching the website that you are going to download something from to make sure it is trusted, you should also research the software you are downloading for the same reason.

How Does The Internet Work?

Computers are able to communicate using on the internet because most programs or websites on the internet are written with the same language called HTML. On websites software converts the HTML code into a readable format. The internet transfers information from these websites by sending it the IP address that requested it. IP addresses are disguised as domain names like www.google.com is a disguise for its IP address which is 173.194.66.104. Websites and other information on the internet are stored in a datacenter which is a big building that connects too many computers allowing those computers to see the websites that is stored in the building.

Evolution of the Internet

Over the years the internet has evolved, more people started using it, and started to have more uses. Every year, more and more people are using the internet; from 2007 to 2008 alone around 250 more people started using the internet. From the year 1993 to 2000 more than 150 countries joined the internet. Another change in the internet is the purposes of websites, from the year 2000 to 2008 half a million more domain names used .com, and this shows that more websites started using the internet to make money. Traffic on the internet significantly changed from 2001 to 2007 by rising by almost 4 million terabytes, showing that not only more people were using the internet, but that they were using it more often and longer.

Uses for the Internet

Uses for the internet have not changed much since the last decade, except for the introduction of social networks. Research and email were the most popular uses for the internet, and still are today. After social networking websites were introduced only 11 percent of people used it (ctmirror.org). Today some of the most popular things that are researched on the internet are directions, a product before buying, the weather, and news. Some other uses for the internet are finding people, businesses, products, and surfaces. People also get an education on the internet, and make sales on an online store. There are also people who find jobs on the internet and make investments to companies by buying stocks. Nonprofit businesses might also use the internet to have an on line newsletter or organize events.

Social Networking

Social Networking websites is a service that helps people share interests, activities, and pictures, for other friends on the social networking site. Social networking sites normally have a representation of a user called a profile. They also have a way for other users to communicate such as having a live chat, or an email or messaging service on the website. Mostly average people use social networking, but businesses of all sizes use it too, to help advertise their business and promote services or products. These websites allow their users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests.

Search Engines

Search engines help you find the website that you want without using its specific URL, without search engines, it would be almost impossible to find a website you want. There are three types of search engines, there are ones powered by robots or programs, ones powered by humans, and ones that are a mixture of both. Search engines that use programs, use software that visits a website, reads its content, and also visits the links that the website has. The software then gives the search engine the data of the website, the software will also revisit the website once in a while to check for changes in the site. Human powered search engines work by having humans read websites and put the data into the search engines themselves. When you search for something in a search engine, you are actually searching through the search engines database where the websites are and their info has been submitted. Some search engines give different results, this is because it depends on what the software found and what humans submitted, not all search engines use the same software or use the same algorithm that determines the relevance of the information in the data to the keywords searched.

Money Online

People are able to buy things online using a credit card or other services online that allow people to buy things and earn money using that website. An example of an online money service is PayPal; this website works by having you deposited money from a credit card into your account so you can use that money later to buy things online. There are also ways to earn money for your PayPal account online. There are online jobs that give you money for doing things like moderating, writing articles, taking surveys, and many more other things that you can do to earn money. Online money is most commonly used for buying products on an online store or auction, and the product would be shipped to them. Other common ways to spend money online are to buy virtually things that only exist on the computer, online, or in a game.

Dangers of the Internet

There are many dangers of the internet. For example, there are cyber bullies who harass people online or the potential of damaging your reputation. There are many forms of cyber bullying, like sending threatening messages, spreading lies about other people, or making spiteful comments on other people’s personal profiles. It is harder to catch cyber bullies than it is to catch regular bullies because they are protected by the anonymity of the internet. Kids normally don’t tell their parents that they are being cyber bullied because they are afraid that they would over react and take away the child’s internet or computer privileges. It is easier for cyber bullies to continue bullying because they don’t see you crying so they don’t feel guilt. Cyber bullies also take embarrassing videos of people they don’t like and post it on the internet for everyone to see. Sometimes people post embarrassing pictures or videos of themselves without thinking and don’t realize how it will damage their reputation. Even if people delete the embarrassing media of themselves, it could still stay on the internet because other people could have posted the same photos or videos somewhere else. Inappropriate media of someone online could ruin someone’s chance of getting a certain job or to get into a college because it gives them a bad image.