History and Development of the Internet

The internet is a global computer network connecting millions and millions of users throughout the world. (Leiner, 2). It has become one of the fastest growing forms of communication today. (Marshall, 1).

The Internet started as a Defense Department Cold War experiment in the 1950’s. (Academic American, 225). The government needed a way to relay information between tanks and headquarters so the APRA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) sought a way to let signals from the battlefield reach a headquarters computer using satellites and radio signals. At the same time the command posts of the nation were located deep underground in mountains in fear of nuclear war. (Diamond, 3). Paul Baran, working for the U.S. Air Force, developed a network that could reroute itself around damage caused by the impact of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile by using "redundancy of connectivity". This meant that in the event of a break in the network the server would re-route the information in an alternate path through a new technique called "packet switching". Packet Switching is a means of breaking up the message being sent into small packets which carry enough information to seek out its desti

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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1029
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)