1/92.1 The Internet
The Internet began life as a research project of the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The original purpose was to build a communications system capable of withstanding partial fallout of nodes during a nuclear attack, through the use of automatic re-routing. The first remote terminal connection from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was demonstrated in November 1969. From these humble beginnings grew the ARPANET, a fully operational computer network, based on a host-to-host protocol called the Network Control Protocol (NCP), and running services such as remote login (Telnet) and file transfer (FTP). Electronic mail was added as an afterthought, after two programmers decided to send each other messages as well as data.
By 1981 there were some 200 sites on the ARPANET. In order to link in other vendors' physical networks into one seamless network, a new standardized protocol, the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), was developed. On `flag day', the 1st January 1983, the whole ARPANET was switched from NCP to TCP/IP and the foundation for the Internet was laid. The inclusion of the TCP/IP protocol suite into Berkeley UNIX around the same time and its subsequent adoption by the vendor community gave a major boost to the Internet.
In March 1986 the Internet had around 3000 sites, and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated development of the NSFNET, connecting six NSF supercomputer centers, to provide a major backbone communication service for the Internet. By late 1989, the Internet had grown to over 150,000 sites in North America, Europe, South America, Australasia and beyond.
The Internet Society (ISOC) was founded in January 1992 as a non-profit, voluntary body to oversee development of the Internet. It appoints a council of elders, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), which coordinates various sub-committees. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops new standards and recommends them to the IAB for approval.
| Early 1970s | ARPANET, US military network, designed to withstand partial fallouts |
| Early 1980s | TCP/IP introduced to connect diverse networks together; Ethernet LANs and workstations become popular; Berkeley UNIX supports TCP/IP |
| Late 1980s | NSFNET backbone |
| 1992 | Internet Society founded as ultimate authority |
| Today | `The Net', a network of networks |
Table 2.1 summarizes the historical development of the Internet. Today, the Internet is a vast, self-regulating network of national, regional, campus and private networks based on the TCP/IP protocol suite and various connecting gateways. This `network of networks' (currently more than 60,000 individual networks) is funded bottom-up -- everyone pays for their part. Although many governments currently finance Internet connectivity for their educational and research institutions, the sheer demands for connectivity mean this is now changing to more direct forms of accounting. Indeed, the Internet is becoming so pervasive that it is often referred to simply as `The Net'. The recent popularity and visibility of the World Wide Web on the Internet has introduced the term `The Web', embracing the sum of Internet services and becoming more or less synonymous with `The Net' and the Internet.
 2.1.1 Internet protocols |
| 2.1.2 Internet addresses |