Internet

   The world's largest computer network, consisting of millions of computers supporting tens of millions of users in hundreds of countries. The Internet is growing at such a phenomenal rate that any size estimates are quickly out of date. The Internet was originally established to meet the research needs of the U.S. defense industry, but it has grown into a huge global network serving universities, academic researchers, commercial interests, government agencies, and private individuals, both in the United States and overseas. The Internet uses TCP/IP protocols, and Internet computers run many different operating systems, including VMS, Microsoft Windows 2000, and many variations of Unix.

   No government agency, single person, or corporate entity controls the Internet; there is no Internet Corporation working behind the scenes. All decisions on methods and standards are made by committees based on input from users.

   Internet use falls into several major areas, including:

   • E-mail

   Electronic mail. Well over 80 percent of the people who use the Internet regularly use it for e-mail. You can send e-mail to recipients in more than 150 countries, as well as to subscribers of commercial online services, such as America Online, CompuServe, Delphi, Genie, and Prodigy.

   • IRC chat

   A service that connects large numbers of users in real-time group discussions.

   • Mailing lists

   Private discussion groups accessed by e-mail.

   • Usenet newsgroups

   Larger public discussion groups that focus on a specific subject. Posts and threads in newsgroups are accessed using a newsreader.

   • World Wide Web

   Hypertext-based system for finding and accessing Internet resources; the World Wide Web is one of the fastest growing and most exciting of all Internet applications.

   Other Internet applications such as Gopher, FTP and anonymous ftp, and Telnet have either been overshadowed by the growth of the World Wide Web or have seen their function absorbed into the popular Web browsers. The sheer volume of information available through the Internet is staggering; however, because the Internet is a casual grouping of many networks, there is often no easy way to determine the location of specific information. This has led to the emergence of several prominent portal sites and a number of popular search engines.

   Internet access can be via a permanent network connection or by dial-up through one of the many Internet Service Providers (ISP).

   See also Internet address; Internet Architecture Board; Internet Assigned Numbers Authority; Internet Engineering Task Force; Internet Research Task Force; Internet Society; portal; Request for Comment; search engine; Usenet; World Wide Web; World Wide Web Consortium.