THE INTERNET

The Internet is a global computer and resource network that provides the user with a huge amount of information and services including such things as database access, electronic mail (E-Mail), file transport, discussion lists, on-line news, weather information, bulletin boards, airline traffic, crop production, on-line text books, and services offered by the World Wide Web, Gopher and WAIS. Now, what does all of this mean to the practicing physician?

The main advantage of the Internet is the interactive exchange of information regardless of location or medium. Researchers and commercial and federal agencies were looking for methods to interconnect computers and various attached devices to allow for this exchange and sharing of information. Physically linking computers and other devices together with cables, telephone lines, satellite links, and special electronic equipment into a computer network has been accomplished, but at a cost: proprietary and often complex, incompatible and expensive systems resulted. Interconnectivity of individual networks and different technologies to form larger networks that could span the world became prudent. Nowadays, the term "Information Superhighway" is being used to illustrate that need, but that term is more a political smoke screen than a truthful representation of the Internet. The Internet (Note the capital I) is NOT a "network of networks." There is no such thing. Nor is the Internet maintained or managed by someone or some organization. These fallacies do injustice to the Internet since they only address the physical layer and do not emphasize the functional integration of the diverse and dispersed resources that this physical layer transports.

To appreciate the current state of the Internet, it is helpful to spend some time on its roots. Interestingly, the United States Department of Defense early on recognized and funded research in the area of interconnecting diverse networks. Toward this goal, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States in the mid-1960's sponsored universities and other research organizations in developing a protocol that would satisfy ARPA's (military) requirements: being able to withstand a nuclear attack. In the late 1960's, the Internet Protocol and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP) family of protocols was completed. The TCP/IP protocol that resulted is the basis of the current Internet user community and defines how computers do such things as start an interconnection, send data back and forth, or terminate a connection. The initial "Internet" was primarily a private information access tool for researchers and scientists at universities and federal agencies. However, the ease of interconnecting TCP/IP networks together, combined with the fact that TCP/IP networks are allowed to grow without disrupting existing networks, and the policy to make the TCP/IP protocol available to everyone in both the academic and research environment has stimulated today's enormous popularity. Soon, networks based on the TCP/IP protocol grew from just a few hundred computers to the world largest network of academic, government, commercial, and educational networks interconnecting millions of systems.

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