Internet and Modern Life
The Internet has already
entered our ordinary life. Everybody knows that the Internet is a global
computer network, which embraces hundred of millions of users all over the
world and helps us to communicate with each other.
The history of Internet began
in the United States in 1969. It was a military experiment, designed to help to
survive during a nuclear war, when everything around might be polluted by
radiation and it would be dangerous to get out for any living being to get some
information to anywhere. Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest
and safest path available from one computer to another. Because of this, any
two computers on the net will be able to stay in touch with each other as long
as there is a single route between them. This technology was called packet
switching.
Invention of modems, special
devices allowing your computer to send the information through the telephone
line, has opened doors to the Internet for millions of people.
Most of the Internet host
computers are in the United States of America. It is clear that the accurate
number of users can be counted fairly approximately, nobody knows exactly how
many people use the Internet today, because there are hundred of millions of
users and their number is growing.
Nowadays the most popular
Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people use the network only for sending
and receiving e-mail messages. They can do it either they are at home or in the
internet clubs or at work. Other popular services are available on the Internet
too. It is reading news, available on some dedicated news servers, telnet, FTP
servers, etc.
In many countries, the
Internet could provide businessmen with a reliable, alternative to the
expensive and unreliable telecommunications systems its own system of
communications. Commercial users can communicate cheaply over the Internet with
the rest of the world. When they send e-mail messages, they only have to pay
for phone calls to their local service providers, not for international calls
around the world, when you pay a good deal of money.
But saving money is only the
first step and not the last one. There is a commercial use of this network and
it is drastically increasing. Now you can work through the internet, gambling
and playing through the net.
However, there are some
problems. The most important problem is security. When you send an e-mail, your
message can travel through many different networks and computers. The data is
constantly being directed towards its destination by special computers called
routers. Because of this, it is possible to get into any of the computers along
the route, intercept and even change the data being sent over the Internet. But
there are many encoding programs available. Notwith-standing, these programs
are not perfect and can easily be cracked.
Another big and serious
problem of the net is control. Yes, there is no effective control in
the^Internet, because a huge amount of information circulating through the net.
It is like a tremendous library and market together. In the future, the
situation might change, but now we have what we have. It could be expressed in
two words— an anarchist's dream.
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