The Internet is a global community, consisting of hundreds of thousands or computers around the world interconnected for communication. The concept originally started out in the 1960's by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), with the intention of sharing info between the governments super computers. The actual term of "Internet" would not be used until 1982. By the end of the 1960's, four college campuses" had put the program into place, sharing data between their computers. The concept was used to share data; the most popular portion of the data sharing was email communications, which would allow scientists to send communications back and fort, the equivalent of a digital post office.
At this point, the Internet's primary use was for research for and by the government. It wasn't until the late 1970's that the public would start to see use in every day life for the Internet. In 1979, two Duke University graduate students created USENET newsgroups. These newsgroups were digital bulletin boards, allowing users from around the globe to post and respond to messages on discussion forums on various topics. By 1983 all computers connected to ARPA had to begin using a new protocol for sending and receiving data. TCP/IP was the new protocol standard of choice by the Internet. The explosion of the Internet in the mid 80's was fueled by more affordable desktop computers and the availability of more powerful servers for use in corporations. Large corporations began using the Internet to connect with other data houses and office locations, as well as existing and potential customers (Abatte, 2000).
The growth also prompted new concerns. In 1988 a worm or a set of malicious computer instructions which act to replicate and disable other computers, made its way thru out the Internet. The worm took 10% of the roughly 60,000 Internet hosts off line (Abatte, 2000). The new world of linked computer users would have to learn the terms hacker and cracker, and understand the vital role of privacy and security in the growth of the digital age.
