What is the Internet? Definition
The Internet has been, without a doubt, one of the great revolutions in the history of humanity.. Fire, the wheel, the steamboat and, in the 20th century, the greatest globalizing phenomenon ever seen.
What began as a resource to design a military strategy has ended up being the most effective and used communication method on the planet, transforming exponentially into a unthinkable and, in fact, still surprising.
Currently, we all consume the Internet to the point of considering it a real necessitya common consumer object present in all homes and already, in fact, in a large number of devices that go far beyond the computer. However, it is curious to see how the vast majority of consumers do not know much about the operation of this precious resource or its possibilities, something that we will reveal today.
What is really the Internet? Origin and history
Internet is a concept, difficult to explain and also to understand. The most basic definition and at the same time not very expressive, although very true, is that it is about “the network of networks”. However, for most, that and nothing is the same.
can we talk about a group of (decentralized) communicative networks that interconnect among them, all with all, making use of the same set of which guarantees that the heterogeneity between them is maintained to the point of becoming a unique logical networkwhich has a scope, as we well know, worldwide.
Source
This phenomenon born as a response to a need of DARPA -at that time known as ARPA-, the US defense agency in charge of developing new technologies for military purposes. The intention was get the most out of your computer.
In 1961, computer scientist L. Kleinrock put forward, on record, a theory of packet switching. In 1965, L. Roberts managed to connect a TX2 computer to a Q-32 using a switched telephone line and through NCP protocol, these being in Massachusetts and California respectively.
In 1969 he was born (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the network of said agency. This was a still nascent concept but enough of a high-speed communication path.
We have as a myth the fact that its birth was given so as not to be ineffective if there were a failure in the network due to a nuclear attack. However, in addition to this, what was sought was to achieve greater robustness, since the switching nodes of the moment presented minimal reliability.
History
It wasn’t until 1972 that the network went public., also making it known that it was financed by DARPA. His presentation was revolutionary but very simple, efficiently explaining that its function was made possible by the switched telephone network.
Its success led to further research to find other techniques that would enable or improve interconnection between networks, always seeking to improve packet traffic.. It was this project, agreed in 1973, and its philosophy (transparent exchange of information) that gave rise to the concept as we know it today: Internet.
The next big milestone was the change of protocol to use TCP/IPwhich was standardized in 1983 and is maintained today.
In 1986 the network of the National Foundation for Science was developed., becoming the main tree network. Is is complemented with other American and European networks, becoming what is known as the internet backbone.
Another invaluable milestone is the creation of the HTML languagewhich was presented at CERN in 1989 by a team of physicists, who also built, a year later, what would be the first web client, the World Wide Web, as well as a first server.
Evolution
So far we could say that the foundations of this revolutionary concept were laid: a network, a language, a first associated service and a server. From this, as is to be expected, the evolution was constant, there being a clear interest in the unthinkable possibilities that this offered.
It was the 1990s, from its beginnings, that allowed us to make a similar use, although absolutely incipient, of what we know today as the Internet.
Graphic tools began to be provided, spaces were created to place information so that all users could access it and, from then until what we know now, everything has been very fast and logical at the same time.
It should be mentioned that, At first, its commercial use was prohibited due to the new user profile that had been created and that had nothing to do with the intentions of the government, which was looking for a non-idle target for the network line created.
This, however, did not last long, since every day the types of networks, providers and other elements that are part of the communication set multiplied, making the restriction for academic, governmental and other use unfeasible. The number of private services that were swarming, it is not known very well where it was such that the phenomenon had exploded; there was no going back.
Thus, in 1993 it became public domain and, furthermore, free of charge, so that anyone could use the technologies that CERN had created years before.
Needless to say, each novelty turned out to be something that, a few months earlier, no one could have imagined; You always believed you were already at the top, forming part of a service that was impossible to improve.. However, the news that occurred and that surprised the entire world were numerous. Search engines: chats, advertising… and, from there, to the global phenomenon we know and enjoy today.
Future
It is difficult to think that even more really significant changes can take place. if we consider that we can see what is happening at home from our phone and even give orders from a distance, or simply type the name of an old college classmate to find out practically everything they have been doing over the years .
However, there are several predictions or changes that are going to take place and that we can summarize as follows:
- mobile connection. Although the figures related to the number of users who connect from mobile devices, the increase in data consumption and complex content and access to all kinds of spaces, not just entertainment or communication, already stand out, the truth is that these will go increasing, passing, by far, the figures related to Internet access from and fixed teams (in Japan this is already a reality). The concept of Mobile Marketing is incipient and is about to explode, assuming a change in advertising strategies that will be focused on the consumer from mobile devices.
- internet-on-air. Internet will be in the air, all points on the globe will have access to the network. The price will go down until, very possibly, it will be something free and cover everything minimally related to technology.
- maximum navigation speed. The speed will increase multiplying, by far, in relation to what we have now. In this way, everything will be immediate, something, on the other hand, necessary, since more and more aspects of our lives will be conditioned by the use of the Internet.
- Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is already a reality, although it will become the way of interacting with software par excellence, leaving behind obsolete hardware that works from our own computers.
- Online advertising as the main option. This channel has become tremendously effective for advertising due to the variety of resources, its low cost, and many other advantages.
- connected homes. The amount of equipment that will work with the Internet will make us live in unified homes that are easily controllable by the user.
- More about social networks. Social networks will continue to be more and more popular, and not only because of their use in entertainment but also as a channel for businesses to interact with their target and customers.
But… how does the internet really work?
Let’s see, in order and isolating concepts, how a connection is made and how the Internet works.
communication protocol
This connection that occurs, first between computers and now between all types of devices, requires, in the first instance, the use of the same communication protocol, that is, the same rules that make communication possible.
In this case, and since 1983, we use TCP/IP. This means that your computer (or the equipment you want) has the same standards as the network you want to connect to). The TCP serves to regulate the way in which the information is sent.
Network ISP Service
seen this, it is necessary that a provider (known as ISP) give us the capacity. it is done contracting one of their services. These ISPs are the telephone and internet companies that we know and that are the ones that give us service to our house and our phones.
IP
The ISP in question will give us an identification number that is unique and that serves to have control over what we do from “our network“, from the possibility of connection that is offered to us. It is what . Of course, it also serves so that the information that you want to send reaches you and not to any other network.
This number consists of four parts that are separated by points and whose values range from 0 to 255. The first tells us which network we are belonging to; the second and third will refer to networks and equipment; the fourth, to our specific device.
Of course, the immensity of equipment, devices and networks make this a bit more complicated today, having to dedicate not only one of the four parts to each concept but even subparts of these, dividing them into bytes and even other units. and being necessary to carry out a classification of the types of connected devices.
data encoding
An obvious part of the concept, whether we know more or less about the subject, is the encoding or conversion of data, which makes these can travel via cable or even, today, over the airwaves. We must make the signals of our device, which are digital, become analog. When they are received, the process is reversed.
That is the job of what was previously a modem and is currently the router that we all have at home, in the office, etc. The concept used is “routing”, which is the transmission of information packets between networks.
This is done based on the communication protocol that we are following, TCP in this case. The data is divided into tiny portions and they are assigned an order to know how they should be decoded later without the message being altered.
servers
A server is something like a “supercomputer” that is connected to the network and that is made available to the user, offering its attention and response services to requests. His identification is somewhat different, precisely for…
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