HOW THE INTERNET WORKS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

THE INTERNET – a history

HOW THE INTERNET WORKS

THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

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INTRODUCTION

The internet seemed fairly bland when people used it in the early nineties. It was a simple networking tool to send files through a wire - if the computer they were sending the files to was online. Otherwise, they had to transmit files using a floppy disk. Things have moved on. With ubiquitous wireless and international access to the internet, it is easy to misunderstand how the internet works. This whitepaper dives into it.

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THE INTERNET

– a history

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The internet was developed because of the need for computers to be connected to share information. In its infancy, it was purely a tool for information transfer. There was no strong security in place - or social element. Computers were mainframes – they took up whole rooms and had hardware with primitive processing capabilities. It was not possible to pick up a laptop and share information. The information from the mainframes needed to be stored on magnetic computer tapes and sent through the postal system – or just be accessed at the mainframe itself.

The only organizations that had the money or interest to have access to the mainframes were large ones such as government researchers, universities, and large corporations. In the 1960s, organizations began to link their computers with wires to enable them to work together. They worked using varying protocols to transmit information – languages, if you will.

On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I. The beach ball-sized artificial satellite orbited the earth continuously in around 90 minutes. The Soviets now had the ability to monitor the atmosphere of, including detecting meteors across the planet. This was in the middle of the Cold War, and demonstrated the Soviet’s scientific prowess, with the backdrop of access to nukes. It started the space race. This put the fear of God into the government of the USA - they realized that the defense department needed to network their computers more effectively in order to be able to communicate in case of nuclear war.

They created ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork), which enabled set academic and research organizations to network their computers along with the Defense Department. This was a new concept. Other organizations started networking their computers. They used various protocols.

On January 1st, 1983, ARPANET changed to a standardized protocol, TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol). The protocol was invented by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. This allowed all computers to communicate with each other. People slowly began to appreciate the value of it, but knowledge of its usefulness to businesses and popularity in general took decades to kick in.

The internet enabled the formation of the world wide web. This is where networked devices communicated free flow. Web1 was where computers with static sites were networked. Web2 was the creation of social media and similar sites, whereby users created content. Web3 is a concept whereby many devices will be used by individuals to interact with the internet. Specifically, augmented reality and virtual reality devices. ???

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HOW THE INTERNET WORKS

Sending and receiving emails, clicking on website addresses, processing payments online, operating the systems that we have set up to do ongoing data requests: all of these actions require internet access. To understand how internet access works, it is necessary to understand the network that the data goes through. Within a company or a home, people use routers to manage the link to the internet. When it comes to the networking of the routers connecting to the internet, servers manage and load balance the data. They also provide security.

?When we connect to the internet, our computer packages up and sends out to the internet packets of information around 1, 000 – 1, 500 bytes in size. Packet is a technical term. Each packet contains:

1.????? the Internet Protocol (IP) address it is being sent from

2.????? the IP address that it is being sent to

3.????? the information – or part of it - being sent

4.????? how many packets are being sent

5.????? where this packet is in the order of the packets

The packets are then sent over the most efficient routes simultaneously online, then reassembled at the receiving end. The logic set on the network (by programmers) determines which route the packet takes. This is important because certain routes get busy, and load balancing done by the network means that the data goes by the quickest route. It also ensures that if a server is not working, or is less efficient at the time, it can be bypassed.

Technically, the logic in Internet Protocol (IP) ensures that the packets get to the correct place; and the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the is the protocol that collates and reassembles the packets. Together, this protocol is called TCP/IP.

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THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

Pew Research Center’s Internet Project asked 2, 558 experts and technology builders about this between November 25, 2013, and January 13, 2014, online. This is a summary of the findings. Their answers had “sriking patterns in their predictions.” 1 ?The predictions were for 2025, but they are still relevant in that they speak of patterns and trends. There is subsidiary information from a GloFiber blog piece. 2

Overall, they saw more widespread access to the internet. They said that ‘accessing the Internet will be effortless and most people will tap into it so easily it will flow through their lives “like electricity.”’ With more wearable and mobile devices. They predict that users will see the devices, and the internet will be taken for granted, in the background.

“The Internet of Things” (IoT) is the computing system that they predict will be a system of:

smart sensors,

cameras,

software,

and databases.

Different devices will have their own network of other devices that they are in constant communication with.

“Augmented reality” will be enhanced, with people carrying, wearing, and having devices implanted. This has implications for treating people’s health, analyzing health risks and early detection of diseases in real time, all the time. It can also change the dynamic of social interactions at home and at work.

Education, entertainment, finance, and publishing will be totally changed. Robots can strip away people’s jobs. How will we provide for those who lost their jobs?

With more devices available throughout the world, more people will have access to educational institutions like khan academy – creating a boomtime in literacy across the world.

Less educated people will be enabled to push together strongly for social justice – as they did in the Arab Spring. They will also become more aware of economic disparity. This could be explosive. There is also the potential for those who can access the internet to be so much more privileged than their neighbors near and far, which could cause unrest and anxiety. This also brings the possibility of digital terrorism. There is also the wind tunnel effect, where our media tailrs itself to our interests, so we are blind to the bigger picture, or nuances.

It could impact countries’ boundaries as individuals are more able to communicate and collaborate. Or governments could use the media to more effectively control populations.

The internet itself will fragment. Devices will have access to certain parts allowed just for them. security and privacy will be a big part of this. Corporations and countries will require this level of security.

Physical and social realms will be tagged, in databases, and analyzed. This information can be used by marketing departments and social scientists.

There will be big effects on:

Economics,

Education,

Entertainment,

Health,

Politics,

And Work.

There will be more global collaboration and understanding. And rivalries.

‘Paul Jones, a professor at the University of North Carolina and founder of ibiblio.org, responded, “Television let us see the Global Village, but the Internet let us be actual Villagers.”’ Another participant warned that with connection to internet devices being so ubiquitous, people will focus more on connections through it than themselves or their fellow residents and work colleagues.

These will mostly be good. There are, however, concerns about:

people being able to hurt each other more easily,

crime,

surveillance,

and terror.

There is a balancing act there between maintaining security and civil liberties. It is a possibility that privacy may become a privilege of the wealthy. The use of the internet is going to accelerate, so we had better buckle up.

In summary, from Sonigitu Asibong Ekpe, a consultant with the AgeCare Foundation, a non-profit organization: ‘Regardless of how the future unfolds, the Internet will evolve in ways we can only begin to imagine. By allowing ourselves to explore and rehearse divergent and plausible futures for the Internet, not only do we prepare for any future, we can also help shape it for the better.’

1 Digital Life in 2025 by Janna Anderson?and?Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center.

March 11, 2014

2 The Future of Internet Services: What to Expect in the Coming Years by GloFiber.

September 7, 2023