Internet

The **Internet** is the world’s largest global communication network for computers and other devices.
It connects many smaller networks from homes, schools, businesses, and governments. These networks share different kinds of information. The short form of the Internet is “the Net.” One of its most popular services is the World Wide Web, which is used by billions of people every day.

The Internet was developed in the United States by the Department of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Internet was first connected in October 1969 and was called ARPANET. The World Wide Web was created at CERN in Switzerland in 1990 by a British (UK) scientist named Tim Berners-Lee.

Today, people use Internet services by paying Internet service providers (ISPs).
Some websites and tools are free, while others may show ads to earn money. There are also ongoing debates about censorship and freedom of speech on the Internet.

## Services

The Internet is used for many things, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer and other documents of the World Wide Web.

The most used service on the Internet is the World Wide Web (which is also called the "Web" or “www”). The web contains websites, including social media, blogs, and wikis like Wikipedia. Webpages on the Internet can be seen and read by anyone (unless the page needs a password, or it is blocked).

The second biggest use of the Internet is to send and receive e-mail. E-mail is private and goes from one user to another. Instant messaging is similar to email, but allows two or more people to chat to each other faster.

Some governments think the internet is a bad thing, and block all or part of it.  For example, the Chinese government thinks that Wikipedia is bad, so often no one in China can read it or add to it. Another example of the internet being blocked is in North Korea. Some parents and schools block parts of the Internet they think are bad for children to see.

## Dangers

The Internet makes communication easy. Yet, communication can be dangerous, too. People often send secret information, and sometimes other people can steal that information. They can use the Internet to spread lies, steal secrets, or give dangerously bad advice. For example, Facebook has had some problems with privacy settings.

- Some websites may trick people into downloading viruses that can harm a computer, or spyware that spies on its users (looks at what they are doing and tells someone else).
- E-mails can have harmful files with them as "attachments".
- In internet chatrooms, people might be preying on others or trying to stalk or abuse them.
- The Internet contains content that many people find offensive , as well as content intended to be offensive.
- Criminals may steal people's personal information or trick people into sending them money.

## Outline and overview

The **Internet** is a worldwide network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that has millions of interconnected smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web. The general public are allowed to use the internet, in almost all countries.

Internet has these features,

- Hosting –
    - File hosting –
    - Web hosting
    - E-mail hosting
    - DNS hosting
    - Game servers (related page, Server)
    - Wiki farms
- World Wide Web –
    - Websites –
    - Web applications –
        - Webmail –
        - Online shopping –
        - Online auctions –
        - Webcomics –
        - Wikis –
- Voice over IP, such as Skype
- IPTV, or Internet Protocol television
- Onion (the darknet)

Internet communication technology:

Internet infrastructure:
- Critical Internet infrastructure, the physical systems that provide internet communication. It includes networking cables (picture), cellular towers (picture), server, internet exchange points (picture), data centers, and individual computers.
- Internet access (picture)
- Internet service provider –
- Internet backbone –
- Internet exchange point (IXP) –
- Internet standard –
    - Request for Comments (RFC) –

Internet communication protocols:

Internet protocol suite –

Link layer –
- Address Resolution Protocol (ARP/InARP) –
- Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) –
- Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) –
- Tunneling protocol (Tunnels) –
    - Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) –
- Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) –
- Medium access control –
    - Ethernet –
    - Digital subscriber line (DSL) –
    - Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) –
    - Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) –

Internet layer –
- Internet Protocol (IP) –
    - IPv4 –
    - IPv6 –
- Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) –
    - ICMPv6 –
- Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) –
    - IPsec –

Transport layer –
- Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) –
- User Datagram Protocol (UDP) –
- Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) –
- Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) –
- Resource reservation protocol (RSVP) –
- Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) –
- QUIC

Application layer –
- Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) –
- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) –
- Domain Name System (DNS) –
- File Transfer Protocol (FTP) –
- Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) –
- Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) –
- Internet Relay Chat (IRC) –
- LDAP –
- Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) –
- Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) –
- Network Time Protocol (NTP) –
- Post Office Protocol (POP) –
- Routing Information Protocol (RIP) –
- Remote procedure call (RPC) –
- Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) –
- Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) –
- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) –
- Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) –
- SOCKS –
- Secure Shell (SSH) –
- Telnet –
- Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL) –
- Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) –

## Related pages

- Hotspot (computers)
- Mobile communication
- Internet protocol
- IP Address
- IETF

- Communications satellite
- Media studies
- World Wide Web
- ARPANET

- Darknet
- Deep web
- Internet video