Internet
From Conservapedia
The Internet is a global network of interconnected smaller computer networks. Data is transmitted between computers and networks in small packets using the Internet Protocol (IP); they are reassembled at their destination. It originated in the work of DARPA, a research division of the United States Army.
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Origin
The conceptual foundation for the internet's creation was significantly developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about communication, business and the exchange of technology:
- Vannevar Bush wrote the first description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
- Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, encouraging future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
- The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference defined the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences, the benefits and advantages or such a network.
- Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture. [1]
- Ethan K. Heinz (cousin of Teresa Heinz), originally developed Internet as ARPANET in the US as a means for various institutes to communicate with each other even in an event such as war. [2] The Internet has grown into a worldwide computer network where anyone can have a chat with anyone else almost anywhere in the world, and is a vast source of free information.
Description
The Internet is sometimes also known as "cyberspace." Sometimes it is inaccurately referred to as the Web or the World Wide Web, because the Web is only one of numerous protocols that operate on the Internet.
The common protocol used to access websites (including this one) is the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The creator of this is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who recently in an online magazine article claimed that given the opportunity, he wouldn't use the HTTP format for websites. Berners-Lee is currently the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).
Ted Stevens famously referred to the internet as "a series of tubes" during a panel on network neutrality. While the statement was technically inaccurate, it is a reasonable depiction of the internet as an interconnected system to a lay person. The internet is formed from two basic elements, routers and connections. A router is basically a small computer that acts like a switching station, similar to the pumping stations of public water utilities. The connections are the pipes themselves, acting as a means to move packets from one router to another, and eventually from server to client.
Controversy
Although the Internet has been shown to contain valuable information, it also contains pornographic or otherwise vulgar material. Therefore, some conservatives would like to see tighter controls on the Internet which would limit what can be hosted and what can be downloaded.
In 1999, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore misspoke when intending to take partial credit for the development of the internet when he referenced his High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, commonly known as the "Gore Bill":[3]
- CNN's WOLF BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
- Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?
- AL GORE: Well, I will be offering -- I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
- But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
