Editing Internet (section)

{{Short description|Global system of connected computer networks}}
{{About|the worldwide computer network|the global system of pages accessed through URLs via the Internet|World Wide Web|other uses}}
{{Redirect|The Internet|the American music group|The Internet (band)|the song Welcome To The Internet|Bo Burnham: Inside}}
{{Redirect|Interweb|the song by Poppy|Interweb (song)}}
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{{Use American English|date=August 2020}}
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<!-- The Internet and the World Wide Web are different concepts – please do not muddle them in this article :) -->

The '''Internet''' (or '''internet'''){{efn|See [[Capitalization of Internet|Capitalization of ''Internet'']]<!-- Added per discussion currently underway on the Talk page -->}} is the [[Global network|global system]] of interconnected [[computer network]]s that uses the [[Internet protocol suite]] (TCP/IP){{Efn|Despite the name, TCP/IP also includes UDP traffic, which is significant.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~dovrolis/Courses/8803_F03/amogh.ppt |author=Amogh Dhamdhere |title=Internet Traffic Characterization |access-date=2022-05-06}}</ref>}} to communicate between networks and devices. It is a [[internetworking|network of networks]] that consists of [[Private network|private]], public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, [[Wireless network|wireless]], and [[optical networking]] technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked [[hypertext]] documents and [[Web application|applications]] of the [[World Wide Web]] (WWW), [[email|electronic mail]], [[internet telephony]], and [[file sharing]].

The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the [[time-sharing]] of computer resources, the development of [[packet switching]] in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for [[data communication]].<ref name="The Washington Post">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/05/30/net-of-insecurity-part-1/|title=A Flaw in the Design|date=30 May 2015|newspaper=The Washington Post|quote=The Internet was born of a big idea: Messages could be chopped into chunks, sent through a network in a series of transmissions, then reassembled by destination computers quickly and efficiently. Historians credit seminal insights to Welsh scientist Donald W. Davies and American engineer Paul Baran. ... The most important institutional force ... was the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) ... as ARPA began work on a groundbreaking computer network, the agency recruited scientists affiliated with the nation's top universities.|access-date=20 February 2020|archive-date=8 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108111512/https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/05/30/net-of-insecurity-part-1/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Yates |first=David M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ToMfAQAAIAAJ&q=packet+switch |title=Turing's Legacy: A History of Computing at the National Physical Laboratory 1945-1995 |date=1997 |publisher=National Museum of Science and Industry |isbn=978-0-901805-94-2 |pages=132–4 |language=en |quote=Davies's invention of packet switching and design of computer communication networks ... were a cornerstone of the development which led to the Internet}}</ref> The set of rules ([[communication protocol]]s) to enable [[internetworking]] on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (DARPA) of the [[United States Department of Defense]] in collaboration with universities and researchers across the [[United States]] and in the [[United Kingdom]] and [[France]].<ref name="Abbatep3">{{harvnb|Abbate|1999|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9BfZxFZpElwC&pg=PA3 3] "The manager of the ARPANET project, Lawrence Roberts, assembled a large team of computer scientists ... and he drew on the ideas of network experimenters in the United States and the United Kingdom. Cerf and Kahn also enlisted the help of computer scientists from England, France and the United States"}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=27 October 2009 |title=The Computer History Museum, SRI International, and BBN Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of First ARPANET Transmission, Precursor to Today's Internet |url=https://www.sri.com/newsroom/press-releases/computer-history-museum-sri-international-and-bbn-celebrate-40th-anniversary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329134941/https://www.sri.com/newsroom/press-releases/computer-history-museum-sri-international-and-bbn-celebrate-40th-anniversary |archive-date=March 29, 2019 |access-date=25 September 2017 |publisher=SRI International |quote=But the ARPANET itself had now become an island, with no links to the other networks that had sprung up. By the early 1970s, researchers in France, the UK, and the U.S. began developing ways of connecting networks to each other, a process known as internetworking.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author1=by Vinton Cerf, as told to Bernard Aboba |date=1993 |title=How the Internet Came to Be |url=http://elk.informatik.hs-augsburg.de/tmp/cdrom-oss/CerfHowInternetCame2B.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170926042220/http://elk.informatik.hs-augsburg.de/tmp/cdrom-oss/CerfHowInternetCame2B.html |archive-date=September 26, 2017 |access-date=25 September 2017 |quote=We began doing concurrent implementations at Stanford, BBN, and University College London. So effort at developing the Internet protocols was international from the beginning.}}</ref> The [[ARPANET]] initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable [[resource sharing]]. The funding of the [[National Science Foundation Network]] as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's [[Internet protocol suite]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_summary.htm|title=Internet History – One Page Summary|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140702210150/http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_summary.htm |archive-date=2 July 2014|website=The Living Internet|first=Bill|last=Stewart|date=January 2000}}</ref> The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the [[World Wide Web]],<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Desk Encyclopedia of World History |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7394-7809-7 |editor-last=Wright |editor-first=Edmund |location=New York |page=312}}</ref> marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet,<ref>"#3 1982: the ARPANET community grows" in [https://www.vox.com/a/internet-maps ''40 maps that explain the internet''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170306161657/http://www.vox.com/a/internet-maps|date=6 March 2017}}, Timothy B. Lee, Vox Conversations, 2 June 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2014.</ref> and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, [[personal computer|personal]], and [[mobile device|mobile]] [[computer]]s were connected to the internetwork. Although the Internet was widely used by [[academia]] in the 1980s, the subsequent [[commercialization of the Internet]] in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.

Most traditional communication media, including [[telephone]], [[radio]], [[television]], paper mail, and newspapers, are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as [[email]], [[Internet telephone]], [[Internet radio]], [[Internet television]], [[online music]], digital newspapers, and [[Audio stream|audio]] and [[video streaming]] websites. Newspapers, books, and other print publishing have adapted to [[Web site|website]] technology or have been reshaped into [[blogging]], [[web feed]]s, and online [[news aggregator]]s. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interaction through [[instant messaging]], [[Internet forum]]s, and [[social networking service]]s. [[Online shopping]] has grown exponentially for major retailers, [[small business]]es, and [[entrepreneur]]s, as it enables firms to extend their "[[brick and mortar]]" presence to serve a larger market or even [[Online store|sell goods and services entirely online]]. [[Business-to-business]] and [[financial services]] on the Internet affect [[supply chain]]s across entire industries.

The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own policies.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/who-owns-internet.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140619070159/http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/who-owns-internet.htm |archive-date=19 June 2014|first=Jonathan|last=Strickland|title=How Stuff Works: Who owns the Internet?|date=3 March 2008|access-date=27 June 2014}}</ref> The overarching definitions of the two principal [[name space]]s on the Internet, the [[IP address|Internet Protocol address]] (IP address) space and the [[Domain Name System]] (DNS), are directed by a maintainer organization, the [[Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers]] (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise.<ref>{{cite IETF |title=The Tao of IETF: A Novice's Guide to Internet Engineering Task Force|rfc=4677|last1=Hoffman|first1=P.|last2=Harris|first2=S.|date=September 2006|publisher=[[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]}}</ref> In November 2006, the Internet was included on ''[[USA Today]]''{{'}}s list of the [[Wonders of the World#USA Today's New Seven Wonders|New Seven Wonders]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2006-10-26-seven-wonders-experts_x.htm |title=New Seven Wonders panel |work=USA Today |date=27 October 2006 |access-date=31 July 2010 |archive-date=15 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100715032114/http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2006-10-26-seven-wonders-experts_x.htm }}</ref>
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