The Internet (portmanteau of interconnected network) is the global system of

interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link
devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic,
business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of
electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast
range of information resources and services, such as the inter-
linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic
mail, telephony, and file sharing.
The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the federal
government of the United States in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant
communication with computer networks.[1] The primary precursor network, the ARPANET,
initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military
networks in the 1980s. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a
new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions,
led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and
the merger of many networks.[2] The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by
the early 1990s marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, [3] and
generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal,
and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was widely
used by academia since the 1980s, commercialization incorporated its services and
technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life.
Most traditional communication media, including telephony, radio, television, paper mail
and newspapers are reshaped, redefined, or even bypassed by the Internet, giving birth
to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet television, online music, digital
newspapers, and video streaming websites. Newspaper, book, and other print publishing
are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and
online news aggregators. The Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of
personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social
networking. Online shopping has grown exponentially both for major retailers and small
businesses and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their "brick and mortar"
presence to serve a larger market or even sell goods and services entirely
online. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply
chains across entire industries.
The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation
or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own policies. [4] The
overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet
Protocol address (IP address) space and the Domain Name System (DNS), are directed
by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols
is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of
loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing
technical expertise.[5] In November 2006, the Internet was included on USA Today's list
of New Seven Wonders.[6]

Contents

 1Terminology
 2History
 3Governance
 4Infrastructure
o 4.1Routing and service tiers
o 4.2Access
 4.2.1Mobile communication
 5Protocols
 6Services
o 6.1World Wide Web
o 6.2Communication
o 6.3Data transfer
 7Social impact
o 7.1Users
o 7.2Usage
o 7.3Social networking and entertainment
o 7.4Electronic business
o 7.5Telecommuting
o 7.6Collaborative publishing
o 7.7Politics and political revolutions
o 7.8Philanthropy
 8Security
o 8.1Malware
o 8.2Surveillance
o 8.3Censorship
 9Performance
o 9.1Outages
o 9.2Energy use
 10See also
 11References
 12Sources
 13Further reading
 14External links

Terminology

The Internet Messenger by Buky Schwartz, located in Holon, Israel

See also: Capitalization of "Internet"
When the term Internet is used to refer to the specific global system of
interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks, the word is a proper noun[7] that should be
written with an initial capital letter. In common use and the media, it is often not
capitalized, viz. the internet. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized
when used as a noun, but not capitalized when used as an adjective. [8] The Internet is
also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as
1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective,
meaning interconnected or interwoven.[9] The designers of early computer networks
used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or
internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. [10]
The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday
speech; it is common to speak of "going on the Internet" when using a web browser to
view web pages. However, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large
number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents (web
pages) and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.[11] As another point of
comparison, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, is the language used on the Web for
information transfer, yet it is just one of many languages or protocols that can be used for
communication on the Internet.[12] The term Interweb is
a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a
technically unsavvy user.

History
Main articles: History of the Internet and History of the World Wide Web
The development of transistors was fundamental to the Internet. [13][14][15] The first transistor,
a point-contact transistor, was invented by William Shockley, Walter Houser
Brattainand John Bardeen at Bell Labs in 1947.[14] The MOSFET (metal-oxide-silicon field-
effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor, was later invented by Mohamed
Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959.[16][17][18] The MOSFET is the building block or
"workhorse" of the information revolution and the information age,[19][20][21] and the most
widely manufactured device in history.[22][23] MOS integrated circuits and power
MOSFETs drive the computers and communications infrastructure that enables the
Internet.[24][25][26] Along with computers, other essential elements of the Internet that are built
from MOSFETs include mobile devices, tranceivers, base station modules, routers, RF
power amplifiers,[27]microprocessors, memory chips, and telecommunication circuits.[28]
Research into packet switching, one of the fundamental Internet technologies, started in
the early 1960s in the work of Paul Baran,[29] and packet-switched networks such as
the NPL network by Donald Davies, ARPANET, the Merit Network, CYCLADES,
and Telenet were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. [30] The ARPANET project
led to the development of protocols for internetworking, by which multiple separate
networks could be joined into a network of networks. [31] ARPANET development began
with two network nodes which were interconnected between the Network Measurement
Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Henry Samueli School of
Engineering and Applied Science directed by Leonard Kleinrock, and the NLS system
at SRI International (SRI) by Douglas Engelbart in Menlo Park, California, on 29 October
1969.[32] The third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at
the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics
Department. In an early sign of future growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young
ARPANET by the end of 1971. [33][34] These early years were documented in the 1972
film Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing.
Early international collaborations for the ARPANET were rare. European developers were
concerned with developing the X.25 networks.[35] Notable exceptions were the Norwegian
Seismic Array (NORSAR) in June 1973, followed in 1973 by Sweden with satellite links to
the Tanum Earth Station and Peter T. Kirstein's research group in the United Kingdom,
initially at the Institute of Computer Science, University of London and later at University
College London.[36][37][38] In December 1974, RFC 675 (Specification of Internet
Transmission Control Program), by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used
the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use.
[39]
Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science
Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet
Protocol Suite(TCP/IP) was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of
interconnected networks. TCP/IP network access expanded again in 1986 when
the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet) provided access
to supercomputer sites in the United States for researchers, first at speeds of 56 kbit/s
and later at 1.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s.[40]Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs)
emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in
1990.
T3 NSFNET Backbone, c. 1992.
The Internet rapidly expanded in Europe and Australia in the mid to late 1980s [41][42] and to
Asia in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[43] The beginning of
dedicated transatlantic communication between the NSFNET and networks in Europe
was established with a low-speed satellite relay between Princeton
University and Stockholm, Sweden in December 1988.[44] Although other network
protocols such as UUCPhad global reach well before this time, this marked the beginning
of the Internet as an intercontinental network.
Public commercial use of the Internet began in mid-1989 with the connection of MCI Mail
and Compuserve's email capabilities to the 500,000 users of the Internet. [45] Just months
later on 1 January 1990, PSInet launched an alternate Internet backbone for commercial
use; one of the networks that would grow into the commercial Internet we know today. In
March 1990, the first high-speed T1 (1.5 Mbit/s) link between the NSFNET and Europe
was installed between Cornell University and CERN, allowing much more robust
communications than were capable with satellites.[46] Six months later Tim Berners-
Lee would begin writing WorldWideWeb, the first web browser after two years of lobbying
CERN management. By Christmas 1990, Berners-Lee had built all the tools necessary
for a working Web: the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 0.9,[47] the HyperText Markup
Language (HTML), the first Web browser (which was also a HTML editor and could
access Usenet newsgroups and FTP files), the first HTTP server software (later known
as CERN httpd), the first web server,[48] and the first Web pages that described the
project itself. In 1991 the Commercial Internet eXchange was founded, allowing PSInet to
communicate with the other commercial networks CERFnet and Alternet. Stanford
Federal Credit Union was the first financial institution to offer online Internet banking
services to all of its members in October 1994. [49] In 1996 OP Financial Group, also
a cooperative bank, became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe.
[50]
By 1995, the Internet was fully commercialized in the U.S. when the NSFNet was
decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on use of the Internet to carry commercial
traffic.[51]

Worldwide Internet users

2005 2010 2017a

World population[52] 6.5 billion 6.9 billion 7.4 billion

Users worldwide 16% 30% 48%

Users in the developing world 8% 21% 41.3%

Users in the developed world 51% 67% 81%

 a
Estimate.

Source: International Telecommunications Union.[53]

Since 1995, the Internet has tremendously impacted culture and commerce, including the
rise of near instant communication by email, instant messaging, telephony (Voice over
Internet Protocol or VoIP), two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide
Web[54] with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shoppingsites.
Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic
networks operating at 1-Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s, or more. The Internet continues to grow, driven
by ever greater amounts of online information and knowledge, commerce, entertainment
and social networking.[55] During the late 1990s, it was estimated that traffic on the public
Internet grew by 100 percent per year, while the mean annual growth in the number of
Internet users was thought to be between 20% and 50%. [56] This growth is often attributed
to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well
as the non-proprietary nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor
interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the
network.[57] As of 31 March 2011, the estimated total number of Internet users was 2.095
billion (30.2% of world population). [58] It is estimated that in 1993 the Internet carried only
1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunication, by 2000 this figure
had grown to 51%, and by 2007 more than 97% of all telecommunicated information was
carried over the Internet.[59]

Governance
Main article: Internet governance

ICANN headquarters in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.
The Internet is a global network that comprises many voluntarily interconnected
autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing body. The technical
underpinning and standardization of the core protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) is an activity of
the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated
international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical
expertise. To maintain interoperability, the principal name spaces of the Internet are
administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
ICANN is governed by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet
technical, business, academic, and other non-commercial communities. ICANN
coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers for use on the Internet, including domain
names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, application port numbers in the transport
protocols, and many other parameters. Globally unified name spaces are essential for
maintaining the global reach of the Internet. This role of ICANN distinguishes it as
perhaps the only central coordinating body for the global Internet. [60]
Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) allocate IP addresses:

 African Network Information Center (AfriNIC) for Africa

 American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) for North America
 Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) for Asia and the Pacific region
 Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) for Latin
America and the Caribbean region
 Réseaux IP Européens – Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) for Europe,
the Middle East, and Central Asia

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of

the United States Department of Commerce, had final approval over changes to the DNS
root zoneuntil the IANA stewardship transition on 1 October 2016. [61][62][63][64] The Internet
Society (ISOC) was founded in 1992 with a mission to "assure the open development,
evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world".[65] Its
members include individuals (anyone may join) as well as corporations, organizations,
governments, and universities. Among other activities ISOC provides an administrative
home for a number of less formally organized groups that are involved in developing and
managing the Internet, including: the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), Internet Research
Task Force (IRTF), and Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG). On 16 November
2005, the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information
Society in Tunis established the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to discuss Internet-
related issues.

Infrastructure
See also: List of countries by number of Internet users and List of countries by Internet
connection speeds

2007 map showing submarine fiberoptic telecommunication cables around the world.
The communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components
and a system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture.

Routing and service tiers

Packet routing across the Internet involves several tiers of Internet service providers.
Internet service providers (ISPs) establish the worldwide connectivity between individual
networks at various levels of scope. End-users who only access the Internet when
needed to perform a function or obtain information, represent the bottom of the routing
hierarchy. At the top of the routing hierarchy are the tier 1 networks, large
telecommunication companies that exchange traffic directly with each other via very high
speed fibre optic cables and governed by peering agreements. Tier 2 and lower level
networks buy Internet transit from other providers to reach at least some parties on the
global Internet, though they may also engage in peering. An ISP may use a single
upstream provider for connectivity, or implement multihoming to achieve redundancy and
load balancing. Internet exchange points are major traffic exchanges with physical
connections to multiple ISPs. Large organizations, such as academic institutions, large
enterprises, and governments, may perform the same function as ISPs, engaging in
peering and purchasing transit on behalf of their internal networks. Research networks
tend to interconnect with large subnetworks such as GEANT, GLORIAD, Internet2, and
the UK's national research and education network, JANET. Both the Internet IP routing
structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are examples of scale-free
networks.[66][disputed (for: unclear whether citation supports claim empricially) – discuss] Computers and routers use routing
tables in their operating system to direct IP packets to the next-hop router or destination.
Routing tables are maintained by manual configuration or automatically by routing
protocols. End-nodes typically use a default route that points toward an ISP providing
transit, while ISP routers use the Border Gateway Protocol to establish the most efficient
routing across the complex connections of the global Internet.
An estimated 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic passes through Ashburn, Virginia.[67]
[68][69][70]

Access
Common methods of Internet access by users include dial-up with a
computer modem via telephone circuits, broadband over coaxial cable, fiber optics or
copper wires, Wi-Fi, satellite, and cellular telephone technology (e.g. 3G, 4G). The
Internet may often be accessed from computers in libraries and Internet cafes. Internet
access points exist in many public places such as airport halls and coffee shops. Various
terms are used, such as public Internet kiosk, public access terminal,
and Web payphone. Many hotels also have public terminals that are usually fee-based.
These terminals are widely accessed for various usages, such as ticket booking, bank
deposit, or online payment. Wi-Fi provides wireless access to the Internet via local
computer networks. Hotspots providing such access include Wi-Fi cafes, where users
need to bring their own wireless devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may
be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based.
Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks. Commercial Wi-Fi services
that cover large areas are available in many cities, such as New
York, London, Vienna, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and Pittsburgh,
where the Internet can then be accessed from places such as a park bench.
[71]
Experiments have also been conducted with proprietary mobile wireless networks
like Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular networks, and fixed wireless
services. Modern smartphones can also access the Internet through the cellular carrier
network. For Web browsing, these devices provide applications such as Google
Chrome, Safari, and Firefox and a wide variety of other Internet software may be installed
from app-stores. Internet usage by mobile and tablet devices exceeded desktop
worldwide for the first time in October 2016. [72]
Mobile communication
Number of mobile cellular subscriptions 2012–2016, World Trends in Freedom of Expression and
Media Development Global Report 2017/2018
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that, by the end of 2017,
48% of individual users regularly connect to the Internet, up from 34% in 2012. [73] Mobile
Internet connectivity has played an important role in expanding access in recent years
especially in Asia and the Pacific and in Africa.[74] The number of unique mobile cellular
subscriptions increased from 3.89 billion in 2012 to 4.83 billion in 2016, two-thirds of the
world's population, with more than half of subscriptions located in Asia and the Pacific.
The number of subscriptions is predicted to rise to 5.69 billion users in 2020. [75] As of
2016, almost 60% of the world's population had access to a 4G broadband cellular
network, up from almost 50% in 2015 and 11% in 2012 [disputed – discuss].[75] The limits that users
face on accessing information via mobile applications coincide with a broader process
of fragmentation of the Internet. Fragmentation restricts access to media content and
tends to affect poorest users the most.[74]
Zero-rating, the practice of Internet service providers allowing users free connectivity to
access specific content or applications without cost, has offered opportunities to
surmount economic hurdles, but has also been accused by its critics as creating a two-
tiered Internet. To address the issues with zero-rating, an alternative model has emerged
in the concept of 'equal rating' and is being tested in experiments
by Mozilla and Orange in Africa. Equal rating prevents prioritization of one type of content
and zero-rates all content up to a specified data cap. A study published by Chatham
House, 15 out of 19 countries researched in Latin America had some kind of hybrid or
zero-rated product offered. Some countries in the region had a handful of plans to
choose from (across all mobile network operators) while others, such as Colombia,
offered as many as 30 pre-paid and 34 post-paid plans. [76]
A study of eight countries in the Global South found that zero-rated data plans exist in
every country, although there is a great range in the frequency with which they are
offered and actually used in each.[77]. The study looked at the top three to five carriers by
market share in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru and
Philippines.</ref> Across the 181 plans examined, 13 per cent were offering zero-rated
services. Another study, covering Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa,
found Facebook's Free Basics and Wikipedia Zero to be the most commonly zero-rated
content.[78]

Protocols
Internet protocol suite

Application layer
  BGP
 DHCP
 DNS
 FTP
 HTTP
 HTTPS
 IMAP
 LDAP
 MGCP
 MQTT
 NNTP
 NTP
 POP
 ONC/RPC
 RTP
 RTSP
 RIP
 SIP
 SMTP
 SNMP
 SSH
 Telnet
 TLS/SSL
 XMPP
 more...

Transport layer
 TCP
 UDP
 DCCP
 SCTP
 RSVP
 more...

Internet layer
 IP
o IPv4
o IPv6
 ICMP
 ICMPv6
  ECN
 IGMP
 IPsec
 more...

Link layer
 ARP
 NDP
 OSPF
 Tunnels
o L2TP
 PPP
 MAC
o Ethernet
o Wi-Fi
o DSL
o ISDN
o FDDI
 more...

 v
 t
 e

While the hardware components in the Internet infrastructure can often be used to
support other software systems, it is the design and the standardization process of the
software that characterizes the Internet and provides the foundation for its scalability and
success. The responsibility for the architectural design of the Internet software systems
has been assumed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).[79] The IETF conducts
standard-setting work groups, open to any individual, about the various aspects of
Internet architecture. Resulting contributions and standards are published as Request for
Comments (RFC) documents on the IETF web site. The principal methods of networking
that enable the Internet are contained in specially designated RFCs that constitute
the Internet Standards. Other less rigorous documents are simply informative,
experimental, or historical, or document the best current practices (BCP) when
implementing Internet technologies.
The Internet standards describe a framework known as the Internet protocol suite, or in
short as TCP/IP, based on the first two components. This is a model architecture that
divides methods into a layered system of protocols, originally documented
in RFC 1122 and RFC 1123. The layers correspond to the environment or scope in which
their services operate. At the top is the application layer, space for the application-
specific networking methods used in software applications. For example, a web browser
program uses the client-server application model and a specific protocol of interaction
between servers and clients, while many file-sharing systems use a peer-to-
peer paradigm. Below this top layer, the transport layer connects applications on different
hosts with a logical channel through the network with appropriate data exchange
methods.
Underlying these layers are the networking technologies that interconnect networks at
their borders and exchange traffic across them. The Internet layer enables computers to
identify and locate each other by Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and routes their traffic
via intermediate (transit) networks.[80] At the bottom of the architecture is the link layer,
which provides logical connectivity between hosts on the same network link, such as
a local area network (LAN) or a dial-up connection. The model is designed to be
independent of the underlying hardware used for the physical connections, which the
model does not concern itself with in any detail. Other models have been developed,
such as the OSI model, that attempt to be comprehensive in every aspect of
communications. While many similarities exist between the models, they are not
compatible in the details of description or implementation. Yet, TCP/IP protocols are
usually included in the discussion of OSI networking.

As user data is processed through the protocol stack, each abstraction layer adds encapsulation
information at the sending host. Data is transmitted over the wire at the link level between hosts
and routers. Encapsulation is removed by the receiving host. Intermediate relays update link
encapsulation at each hop, and inspect the IP layer for routing purposes.
The most prominent component of the Internet model is the Internet Protocol (IP), which
provides addressing systems, including IP addresses, for computers on the network. IP
enables internetworking and, in essence, establishes the Internet itself. Internet Protocol
Version 4 (IPv4) is the initial version used on the first generation of the Internet and is still
in dominant use. It was designed to address up to ≈4.3 billion (10 9) hosts. However, the
explosive growth of the Internet has led to IPv4 address exhaustion, which entered its
final stage in 2011,[81] when the global address allocation pool was exhausted. A new
protocol version, IPv6, was developed in the mid-1990s, which provides vastly larger
addressing capabilities and more efficient routing of Internet traffic. IPv6 is currently in
growing deployment around the world, since Internet address registries (RIRs) began to
urge all resource managers to plan rapid adoption and conversion. [82]
IPv6 is not directly interoperable by design with IPv4. In essence, it establishes a parallel
version of the Internet not directly accessible with IPv4 software. Thus, translation
facilities must exist for internetworking or nodes must have duplicate networking software
for both networks. Essentially all modern computer operating systems support both
versions of the Internet Protocol. Network infrastructure, however, has been lagging in
this development. Aside from the complex array of physical connections that make up its
infrastructure, the Internet is facilitated by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts,
e.g., peering agreements, and by technical specifications or protocols that describe the
exchange of data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is defined by its interconnections
and routing policies.

Services
The Internet carries many network services, most prominently the World Wide Web,
including social media, electronic mail, mobile applications, multiplayer online
games, Internet telephony, file sharing, and streaming media services.
The terms Internet and World Wide Web, or just the Web, are often used
interchangeably, but the two terms are not synonymous. The World Wide Web is a
primary application program that billions of people use on the Internet, and it has
changed their lives immeasurably.[83][84]

World Wide Web

This NeXT Computer was used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first Web
server.
The World Wide Web is a global collection of documents, images, multimedia,
applications, and other resources, logically interrelated by hyperlinks and referenced
with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), which provide a global system of named
references. URIs symbolically identify services, web servers, databases, and the
documents and resources that they can provide. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is
the main access protocol of the World Wide Web. Web services also use HTTP for
communication between software systems for sharing and exchanging business data and
logistics.
World Wide Web browser software, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer/Edge, Mozilla
Firefox, Opera, Apple's Safari, and Google Chrome, lets users navigate from one web
page to another v