right, abit of a multiple question here, but it just popped into my mind and was rather interested: How did the internet evolve/start? How has the internet been developed since it started? Whats the difference between the "internet" and "world wide web"? or how can u distinguish between the 2? How did the Word Wide Web start? How has it developed? (im guessing web side programming languages e.t.c)? How are they related or like integrated? (as obviously they are fairly similar) Now, i've been reading up on Protocols, media types and software used for communications e.t.c but found myself asking these questions, hope you can help, most sites that i've found come up with "history of how the internet started" no specific, clearly and easily understood descriptions or accurate histories.
Several decades ago (I think it was the 50's or 60's--can't remember), there was a crude predecessor to the modern "Internet", called ARPANET. It was originally for government use, and was eventually scrapped. The concept remained, and without getting too detailed, over time it became the Internet. If I'm remembering correcting, the Ethernet setup came around from this too. Unix has been around for a few decades (Linux is a free variation of Unix, as is BSD), and that's what the web links are based on. This is why Blah.com, Blah.txt, etc. is different than blah.com, blah.txt, etc.---basically why upper and lower case make a difference. As far I know and from what I've seen, the Internet and World Wide Web are the same thing in one sense. Internet's not as big of a mouthful as World Wide Web. There's a lot of information, and it really can't be condensed easily. I've had some college classes on it, but alot of the stuff is jumbled together an pieces are missing.
I'd like to add that at the start, the government used it during the cold war as a way of communication. After that, universities started using that technology and now everyone uses it. The internet is a network of network of computers. Meaning that several computers linked together, that can communicate to eachother, are connected to other networks of computers that can do the same thing, via DNS servers, gateways and such. All those networks cannot communicate directly to eachother but there is always a path that makes you able to communicate with another computer located in another network. I can explain to you pretty much how it works but I don't have the time right now, I will if you want me to do it. Now the World Wide Web is like a huge electronic library where you can find anything. You can access it via a browser of course. But there are other services on the net, like e-mailing, chatting, conferencing, etc. Basically, the WWW is a part of the internet.
I won't go into much details but you'll get the idea. First off, every computer, at a given time, has a unique IP adress, that's what identifies them on the internet. Even when you use a string of words (like www.hardwareforums.com), what you're really doing is asking the DNS (Domain Name Server) what is the IP that is associated with that name, and then it can find its way. So when you enter an adress, it tries to find its way through your local network. If it can't, it asks the gateway if it knows that adress or if it knows what gateway knows that adress. The gateway is a computer that is between you, and the rest of the world. Once it has reached its goal, the gateway will try to associate the IP with your MAC adress. The Mac adress is an adress that is burnt into your network card and it is truly unique. You won't find two network cards with the same MAC adress. It's impossible. Once it has made the association, it will send the signal to the network where your computer is. That's why we say the internet is a network of networks. Not every network has a direct access to every other networks, but there's always a path that will lead you there. Now you got a hub, a switch and a router. If you have a hub, all it does is take the signal and send it to everyone it can. If you have a switch, it will only send the signal to the right network card. And if you have a router, that's like a switch but only certain ports are opened so you have to transfer you signals through those ports if you wanna' transmit/receive anything. Of course, a switch is a lot better than a hub because: 1) Not everyone will be able to intercept the signal 2) It's not a bandwidth hog like the hub which uses it all all the time. So basically, you have access to all the signals that travel in your network. The thing is the signal won't get to you if it's not intended to you. Unless you have a program that gives you the ability to do that, then you're a "hacker". You also have to understand that there is a difference between a hacker and a cracker and that there are 3 different kinds of hackers. hackers: White-hats: They usually are experts in security that work for big companies or network genius that do this from home. They sometimes try to infiltrate huge systems to find the flaws and then contact the company to inform them. There intentions are good but what would you say if someone entered your home and told you:"hey look you should fix that cause I can come in whenever I want" ??? Black-hats (Crackers): They infiltrate and damage or steal information from others for their own sake or money. Those are the people you gotta be aware of. Grey-hats: Obviously, this is somewhere between those two.
