ABSTRACT

What Do We Mean by the Internet? e Internet traces its origin, more than 30 years ago, to the INTERlinking of computer NETworks among scientists working under the auspices of the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. Initially known as the ARPANET, the network evolved to use a standardized interface message processor that enabled each computer to treat the information it received from

12  ◾ 

other terminals in the network as if they were coming from within its own hard drive. Another important aspect of this network was that it broke down the information transmitted among terminals into packets that could be transmitted indiscriminately through the best available links in the network and reassembled into the intended message to be delivered upon reaching their destination.*

e design of this system relied on protocols that regulated the transmission of information. ese regulators were labeled Transmission Control Protocols/Internet Protocols or TCP/IP, and they shaped the Internet that we know today.