Portal:Internet

The Internet Portal

The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. 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 interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, internet telephony, and file sharing.

The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable internetworking on the Internet arose from research and development commissioned in the 1970s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense in collaboration with universities and researchers across the United States and in the United Kingdom and France. The ARPANET initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the United States to enable resource sharing. The funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, encouraged worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and the merger of many networks using DARPA's Internet protocol suite. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s, as well as the advent of the World Wide Web, marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, and generated sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional, personal, and mobile computers were connected to the internetwork. Although the Internet was widely used by academia in the 1980s, the subsequent commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s and beyond incorporated its services and technologies into virtually every aspect of modern life. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

Cyberpunk is often set in urbanized, artificial landscapes

Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that focuses on computers or information technology, usually coupled with some degree of breakdown in social order. The plot of cyberpunk writing often centers on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and mega corporations, tending to be set within a near-future dystopian Earth, rather than the "outer space" locales prevalent at the time of cyberpunk's inception. Much of the genre's "atmosphere" echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction. While this gritty, hard-hitting style was hailed as revolutionary during cyberpunk's early days, later observers concluded that in terms of literature, most cyberpunk narrative techniques were less innovative than those of the New Wave, twenty years earlier. Primary exponents of the cyberpunk field include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, John Shirley and Rudy Rucker. The term became widespread in the 1980s and remains current today.

More selected articles

Read more

edit

Selected picture

Credit: Happy Bushra

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.

More selected pictures

Read more

Good Articles - load new article

Client Hints is an extension to the HTTP protocol that allows servers to ask the client (usually a web browser) for information about its configuration. This helps the server tailor its responses to the client; for example, a server can choose to send a smaller image if a client advertises that they have a very small screen. The client can choose to respond to this request by advertising the requested information about itself by sending the data using a specific part of the HTTP protocol called HTTP header fields or by exposing the same information to the JavaScript code being executed on a web page.

Proposed by Google engineers in 2013, Client Hints was designed as a privacy-focused alternative to user-agent headers. This was done as part of an initiative by Google called Privacy Sandbox. User-agent headers are code snippets sent by a client to identify itself to a server. While initially intended for statistical purposes, these headers had increasingly became a tool for tracking users across websites. Client Hints aimed to address this issue by providing a more controlled way to share the same information. Despite the focus on privacy, the initial design of Client Hints faced criticism from other browsers. One of the primary concerns that was brought up was that the protocol could enable new forms of tracking by third-party domains. Third-party domains are web servers not owned by the website that load resources like images and script files. Despite these concerns, Chrome implemented support for Client Hints in August 2020. By 2024, over 75% of web users had browsers that supported Client Hints.

Privacy researchers have since raised concerns that Client Hints is primarily being used by JavaScript code which tracked users. In 2023, a study from KU Leuven and Radboud University found that when examining the top 100,000 websites on the internet, most accesses of Client Hints came from JavaScript code used for tracking and advertising purposes. (Full article...)

edit

WikiProjects

Main project: WikiProject Internet
Related WikiProjects: Blogging • Websites • Early Web History • Internet culture

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that a researcher called the community on the short-lived collaborative writing website One Million Monkeys Typing "astonishingly harmonious"?
... that the anonymously run Socialite Rank and Rich Kids of Instagram were both compared to the fictional Gossip Girl?
... that a knife attack in Suzhou, China, led to the deletion of hundreds of ultranationalist posts from social media platforms?
... that statements about the character Ridley's reasons for not being in the fighting game series Super Smash Bros. led to Internet memes about the character's large size?
... that Barack Obama made an election promise to make non-emergency bills freely available online for a five-day public consultation period under "sunlight before signing"?
... that the Félag hljómplötuframleiðenda tried to close the file-sharing website Istorrent in 2007–2008, but the Supreme Court of Iceland dismissed the case?

edit

Selected biography

Douglas C. Engelbart (born January 30, 1925 in Oregon) is an American inventor of Swedish and Norwegian descent. As a World War II naval radio technician based in the Philippines, Engelbart was inspired by Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think". Engelbart received a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1948, a B.Eng. from UC Berkeley in 1952, and a Ph.D. in EECS from UC Berkeley in 1955. At Stanford Research Institute , Engelbart was the primary force behind the design and development of the On-Line System, or NLS. He and his team at the Augmentation Research Center developed computer-interface elements such as bit-mapped screens, groupware, hypertext and precursors to the graphical user interface. In 1967, Engelbart applied for and later received a patent for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse). Engelbart later revealed that it was nicknamed the "mouse" because the tail came out the end. He would also work on the ARPANET, the precursor of the Internet. In later years he moved to the private firm Tymshare after SRI was transferred to the company. McDonnell Douglas took over the copany in 1982, and in 1986 he left the company. As of 2007, he is the director of his own company, the Bootstrap Institute, which founded in 1988 and located in Fremont, California.

More selected biographies

Read more

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various internet-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Map of the TCP/IP test network in February 1982 (from History of the Internet)
Image 2The NeXT Computer used by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first Web server. (from History of the World Wide Web)
Image 3
Fixed broadband Internet subscriptions in 2012
as a percentage of a country's population
Source: International Telecommunication Union. (from History of the Internet)
Image 4
Mobile broadband Internet subscriptions in 2012
as a percentage of a country's population
Source: International Telecommunication Union. (from Internet access)
Image 5Postage stamp of Azerbaijan (2004): 35 Years of the Internet, 1969–2004 (from History of the Internet)
Image 6
Internet users in 2023 as a percentage of a country's population
Source: International Telecommunication Union. (from History of the Internet)
Image 7Where the WEB was born (from History of the World Wide Web)
Image 8The digital divide measured in terms of bandwidth is not closing, but fluctuating up and down. Gini coefficients for telecommunication capacity (in kbit/s) among individuals worldwide (from Internet access)
Image 9The "message block", designed by Paul Baran in 1962 and refined in 1964, is the first proposal of a data packet. (from History of the Internet)
Image 10Internet Connectivity Access layer (from Internet access)
Image 11Robert Cailliau, Jean-François Abramatic, and Tim Berners-Lee at the tenth anniversary of the World Wide Web Consortium (from History of the World Wide Web)
Image 12
Broadband affordability in 2011
This map presents an overview of broadband affordability, as the relationship between average yearly income per capita and the cost of a broadband subscription (data referring to 2011). Source: Information Geographies at the Oxford Internet Institute. (from Internet access)
Image 13
Mobile broadband Internet subscriptions in 2012
as a percentage of a country's population
Source: International Telecommunication Union. (from History of the Internet)
Image 14The corridor where the World Wide Web was born, on the ground floor of building No. 1 at CERN (from History of the World Wide Web)
Image 15Wi-Fi logo (from Internet access)
Image 16Wi-Fi range diagram (from Internet access)
Image 17Stamped envelope of Russian Post issued in 1993 with stamp and graphics dedicated to first Russian underwater digital optic cable laid in 1993 by Rostelecom from Kingisepp to Copenhagen (from History of the Internet)
Image 18Satellite Internet access via VSAT in Ghana (from Internet access)
Image 19First Internet demonstration, linking the ARPANET, PRNET, and SATNET on November 22, 1977 (from History of the Internet)
Image 20BBN Technologies TCP/IP Internet map of early 1986 (from History of the Internet)
Image 21
Number of Internet hosts worldwide: 1969–2019
Source: Internet Systems Consortium. (from History of the Internet)
Image 221997 advertisement in State Magazine by the US State Department Library for sessions introducing the then-unfamiliar Web (from History of the World Wide Web)
Image 23
Internet users in 2015 as a percentage of a country's population
Source: International Telecommunication Union. (from Internet access)
Image 24
Fixed broadband Internet subscriptions in 2012
as a percentage of a country's population
Source: International Telecommunication Union. (from Internet access)
Image 25T3 NSFNET Backbone, c. 1992 (from History of the Internet)

edit

Selected quote

Our idea of the Internet is that it's an open source, a place where people all over the world can instantly get content. We've tried to use it as a way to develop trust with our fans as much as possible.

— Taylor Hanson, 2005

More selected quotes

More at Wikiquote

edit

Main topics

Internet

Articles: Application layer; ARPANET; Blog; Browsers; CERN; Collaborative software; Computer file; Computer network; Computer networking; DARPA; Data (computing); Electronic commerce; E-mail; English on the Internet; FidoNet; File sharing; History of the Internet; HTML; HyperCard; Hyperlink; ICANN; Instant messaging; Internet access; Internet capitalization conventions; Internet censorship; Internet Control Message Protocol; Internet democracy; Internet Exchange Point; Internet Governance Forum; Internet privacy; Internet Protocol; Internet protocols; Internet research; Internetworking; Massively multiplayer online role-playing game; Mosaic (web browser); National Center for Supercomputing Applications; Net neutrality; Online chat; Peering; Remote access; Transmission Control Protocol; Scale-free network; Search engine; Security; Social network service; Unicode; Uniform resource locator; User agent; User Datagram Protocol; ViolaWWW; Virtual private network; VoIP; Web browser; Web resource; Web service; Wide area network; World Summit on the Information Society; World Wide Web

edit

Featured content

Extended content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Internet}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.