ABSTRACT

The Internet is a super network of universities, research sites, commercial organizations, and government agencies that allows information exchange and sharing of data and resources. The predecessor of the Internet was ARPANET, a Department of Defense computer network created in 1969. When the Department of Defense moved its military applications to a new network (MILNET) in the mid 1980s, researchers— and eventually the National Science Foundation—took over the physical network, and the Internet was born. Today, the Internet connects over 30,000 smaller computer networks, over one million individual (host) computers, and over 5 million users.