Introduction to the Internet: What is the Internet?

by Lorrie Faith Cranor

The Internet is a rapidly-growing worldwide network of computer networks that connects over 20 million users in 50 countries. It uses a standard addressing and communications system so that computers of different types can communicate with each other without having to store information about the structure of the network or about all the other computers on the network.

Before the creation of the Internet, computers located at different sites could only communicate if they were connected by phone line. Many people still use ordinary phone lines to connect to the Internet. However, large institutions usually run cables that connect directly to the Internet.

Brief History

The Internet was created in 1969 as ARPANET. It originally had four nodes and was designed as a decentralized military network that could withstand a nuclear war. However, the ARPANET was used mostly for computer science research and communication between government funded research institutions rather than for military purposes. Originally electronic mail services were only provided for testing purposes. But email became unexpectedly popular very quickly.

In 1982 CSNET was created for communication between various computer science research institutions. CSNET, which later became NSFNET, was connected to ARPANET.

In 1990 ARPANET merged with NSFNET. At that point the Internet had about 300,000 nodes. Since then the Internet has experienced exponential growth, doubling in size about once a year. Not only are most American government agencies, colleges, and universities connected, but so are commercial networks, grade schools, and institutions around the world. As of January 1995 there were over 4,852,000 computers on the Internet. A year later there were 9,472,000 computers on the Internet.

Who Controls Content on the Internet?

Media reports about the widespread availability of pornographic pictures on the Internet often lead people to wonder, "Who is in charge? And why aren't they doing anything about this?" The answer to this question is complicated. There is no one person or organization that controls content on the Internet. Even if you could appoint such an organization (which is unlikely because the Internet crosses international borders), it would be difficult for that organization to actually have much control. Imagine that someone wanted to control the content of the world's telephone conversations. The task of controlling the content of the entire Internet would be even more difficult because of the volume of data, and the fact that much of the information on the Internet is indistinguishable until it is processed by a special-purpose program. For example, a pornographic picture is indecipherable from any other graphics file until it is displayed with an image viewer.

Although there have been many efforts to censor parts of the Internet, many people maintain that Internet censorship is simply impossible. Online activist John Gilmore is often quoted as saying, "The Net treats censorship as damage and routes around it." Censorship can (and does) occur on individual computers, although it sometimes is enforced by removing these computers from the Internet. Even so, attempts at preventing certain types of material from crossing international borders have proved futile. With the right software, however, it is possible for individuals to control what information they (or their children) can access.

In February 1996 the US Congress passed telecommunications legislation including Internet censorship provisions designed to protect under age Net surfers. As of this writing, these provisions have not been enforced.

For More Information

For more information about the Internet see:

The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net: An Anthology (http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/project_book.html)
The Internet and Cyberspace from the Computers and Society Articles Collection (http://www.cec.wustl.edu/~cs142/internet.html)
Hobbes' Internet Timeline (http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html)
Internet Guides (http://www.brandonu.ca/~ennsnr/Resources/guides.html)

For more information on freedom of speech and censorship on the Internet see:

The ACA's Freedom of Speech archive (http://www.uark.edu/depts/comminfo/www/freespeech.html)
The Internet Censorship page from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/)

Last update 24 February 1996
http://www.ccrc.wustl.edu/spj/surf/internet.html