Mar
5
The Internet
March 5, 2018 | Leave a Comment
I never really knew much about the history behind the internet. A huge part of the Cold war research involved targeting. Computers became central to this research. First, we started with analog computers but then we upgraded to electrical computers. Electronic computers were made up of vacuum tubes. Tubes allowed amplification. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was developed to compute missile trajectories and run simulations for atomic bombs. It’s crazy to think that researchers would have to use stacks of punch-cards to give instructions to ENIAC. After tubes, came transistors which were much smaller and more efficient. DARPA and the ARPANET was birth out of the fact that scientists wanted to create a communication network that had no “hub.” The ARPANET allowed messages to be divided up into packets which took varied paths. The internet allowed free and easy distribution of information. Hypertext undermines authority and elite-ness. Before the internet, access to knowledge was restricted by how much money you had. The internet owes its origin to the ARPANET. Without it, the internet probably wouldn’t conduct itself in the way it does today or even exist. The ARPANET helped to establish the protocols that are used today throughout the Internet. Finally, the ARPANET developed a way to make the internet a larger and regional network, making it accessible to everyone. Even with access to free information, there are still “sinister authorities” that are trying to control access to information. Media outlets are being trumpeted as “fake news” and it seems our governing authority is trying to have a dictatorship over the information citizens receive.
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