What is the Internet

To access the Internet from your home, the requirements are a personal computer, a modem (which is a device that enables your computer to send and receive information though the telephone line), a communications program, connection to a telephone line, and an account with an Internet Service Provider.

To access the Internet from your office at the University of Maryland campus the only thing that you need is an Ethernet card and connection to the campus wide network.

Since the University of Maryland campus network is already a part of the collection of networks on the Internet, you do not need an Internet Service Provider.

The Internet is a huge collection of computer networks from all around the world, connected to each other to exchange data using a common communication software standard.

The Internet began as a U.S. Department of Defense project called ARPANET during the Cold War. The original air of the project was to have a medium of communication that would function even if a large portion of it was destroyed in a possible nuclear war or natural disaster. In the following year, the network that evolved was used primarily by academic institutions, scientists and the government for research and communications. Since 1992, when the US government began pulling out of network management and commercial entities offered Internet access to the general public for the first time, the purpose of Internet changed and the number of users increased dramatically.

Today, the Internet consists of many independent systems, of which the most important ones are the following:

E-mail	Exchanging electronic messages over the Internet
Newsgroups	Public bulletin boards on the Internet
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)	A System for storing and retrieving data files on large computer systems
TELNET	A system that enables direct connection to a specific computer on the Internet
IRC (Internet Relay Chat)	A system for sending messages to other users in real time
WWW (World Wide Web)	A system of resources that enable computer users to view and interact with a variety of information

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a system of resources that enable computer users to view and interact with a variety of information, including magazine archives, public and university library resources, current world and business news, and software programs.

WWW resources are organized to allow users to move easily from one resource to another.

Users generally navigate through the WWW using a Software application known as a WWW browser (Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Explorer or other).

What is the Internet?