What is the Internet?

The Internet isn't a massive powerful supercomputer like the WOPR in the movie War Games. There is no one who "runs" the Internet. The Net is a decentralized global network of computers that are all linked and use a common protocol (method of communicating), the Internet Protocol or IP.

Origins

The Net was originally created by the US military during the Cold War, in order to have a decentralized computer network that could continue to operate even if a portion of it was destroyed by, for example, a nuclear strike. For a long time (the Internet is more than 30 years old -- it's been around for a while), the network was supposed to be used for non-commercial purposes only -- primarily research. In the 1990s, however, the US government finally stepped out of the picture, and commercial Internet Service Providers stepped in.

This brings us to the current Internet: mostly commercial, world-wide, and mostly used for a lot of things that have nothing to do with serious academic or military research. I'll leave those to your imagination.

How big is it, then?

There are some websites that "map" the internet and can give you an idea of the scope of this network. Mids.org has one that gives you an idea where the largest amount of traffic occurs, and what parts of the world still aren't served by the Net. This is a fairly traditional map, showing the different continents. The Internet Mapping Project is a much more non-traditional way to view the Net, showing the links from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to other ISPs. View one of these images close-up to get an idea how this works.

What about Web pages?

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the Web yet. This might seem like a strange omission, but there is a reason for it. The reason is (wait for it:

The Internet is not the Web (and vice versa)

Then why do people talk about them as if they're one and the same? Well, to be blunt -- for most peoples' purposes, there isn't much need to make a distinction between the Internet and the Web. But if you are going to be Web site designers, you'll need to know the difference.

See the next section for more on this.

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