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| I. WHAT IS THE INTERNET?
The Internet was created in the 1960's
out of an effort to connect a U.S. Defense Department network called the
ARPAnet and various other radio and satellite networks. Often described
as an "international network of networks", the Internet connects independent
networks in more than 170 countries in the world. It links computers of
many different types, sizes and operating systems, and thus enables the
many people in those countries to share information and communicate with
each other.
II. WHO OWNS THE INTERNET? The Internet is not owned
by any organization, government or corporation. Therefore, there is no
single authority that controls the Internet. Each autonomous network on
the Internet makes its own rules, regulations, and decisions about which
resources to make publicly available. There are, however, several task
force groups comprised of people and organizations who voluntarily meet
to develop standards for the technical needs of organizing the Internet.
The hardware, the computers, the cables, the routers, the servers and so
on are owned by government and private organizations and are usually paid
for by taxes and user fees.
III. RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET Once connected to the Internet,
anyone can have instant access to a wide variety and a large amount of
information resources ranging from government information to legal research,
from women's studies to medical research, from environmental studies to
space exploration. You can find a wealth of information on the United Nations,
its programmes, activities and documentation as well as information on
other international organizations. The resources include archives of documents,
academic institution resources, electronic journals, commercial products,
online discussion groups, as well as software, video, audio and multimedia
sources - all of which are expanding at a phenomenal rate.
IV. INTERNET ADDRESSES The Domain Name System is
a method of creating addresses made up of words separated by dots (for
example www.un.org). All domain name addresses end with a top-level domain.
The top-level domain at the right of the address is the most general; each
term to the left is more specific.
Examples of original top-level domains: |
| org: organization | e.g.: www.un.org (United Nations) |
| gov: governmental body | e.g.: thomas.loc.gov (Thomas: United States legislative information) |
| edu: educational institution | e.g.: www.yale.edu (Yale University) |
| com: business | e.g.: www.yahoo.com (Yahoo) |
| net: network provider | e.g.: www.customweb.net (Web presence provider) |
| mil: military | e.g.: www.af.mil (United States Air Force) |
| a two letter country code
such as us, de, or uk See the country code table for a more complete listing |
e.g.: www.german-embassy.org.uk (Embassy of Germany in London) |
| Uniform Resource Locators (ULR)
Every site on the Internet has a very specific address. These addresses are called "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator). A URL can be seen as a citation for networked information ("Internet citation"). There are URL formats for the various types of resources on the Internet.
("http" stands for "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol") Cornell Law School Resources: gopher://gopher.law.cornell.edu Uncover database for journals: telnet://pac.carl.org New York University FTP sites:
ftp://ftp.nyu.edu
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