The Web Unwoven :: Expository History Interenet Essays

Introduction The WWW and the Internet are joined at the hip. The two are not separate—at least today. (Galbreath, 1977).(1) Most graduate students today, especially those of us majoring in Instructional Technology (IT), use the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) and the Internet (Net) for research. However many students do not know exactly how the Web came about nor do they understand its relationship to the Internet. Students, along with the general public, often consider the words Web and Internet interchangeable, meaning one and the same thing, primarily for the reason that Galbreath mentions above—the two seem joined at the hip today. The purpose of this paper is to provide a synopsis of the historical evolution of the Internet, to distinguish between it and the Web, and to present a glimpse of the Internet's future. History J.C.R. Licklider of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recorded the first conceptual description of computer networked social interactions in August 1962. His Galactic Network concept essentially described, in spirit, the Internet of today. It involved computers interconnected around the globe through which we could quickly access data and programs from any site. He convinced several of his colleagues of the importance of this networking concept. (2) Evidently, computer networking research work at MIT (1961-1967), the RAND Corporation (1962-1965), and at NPL in the UK (1964-1967) all proceeded in parallel without any of the researchers knowing of the other's work. (For a complete timeline of Internet developments visit Hobbes Timeline.) (3) For instance, in July 1961, Leonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory and later in 1964 he published the first book on the subject. Meanwhile, in 1962, The RAND Corporation published Paul Baran's report On Distributed Communications Networks. The report was funded by a US Air Force contract to explore how the US military could protect its communications systems from hostile attack. In this and his subsequent reports, Baran recommended a national public utility to transmit digital data among a large set of subscribers. With his proposed packet switching system, messages are divided into packets, which are separately addressed and separately transmitted. Each packet is passed from node to node on the network. Although each packet may follow different paths, when it ends up in it's proper destination, all the packets are then reassembled into a complete message.