How they enjoy information superhighway<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Back in the Cold War era, one of the biggest
\nconcerns in the United States was how a communication network
\ncould be maintained and operated even after a major nuclear
\nattack by the Soviet Union had devastated the country.<\/p>\n
A centralized network would definitely not meet this
\nrequirement, since all the Soviets would have to do was to
\ndestroy the central hub in order to cripple the entire
\ncommunication system. Therefore, the Department of Defense opted
\nfor a non-centralized network.<\/p>\n
Packet switching was also the clear option as opposed to
\ncircuit switching. In a packet switching network, data is broken
\ndown into units called \"packets\", and each packet is given an
\nenvelop. Each envelop carries the necessary information about the
\nsender, addressee, and to which other packets it should be
\nreattached. Therefore, even though packets of the same data
\ntravel along different paths, they will eventually arrive at the
\nsame destination where they will be reunited in the correct
\norder.<\/p>\n
Based on these ideas, the Advanced Research Project Agency,
\nDepartment of Defense started constructing networks of computer
\nnetworks in the later half of the 1960s. In the beginning,
\nmembers had access only their own computer networks. But later
\non, academic institutions, such as universities began joining the
\nInternet, on the condition that they would provide the service of
\nforwarding any messages that passed through their nodes. Later,
\npublic and private research centers also joined the Net. Since
\nearly 1990s, the Internet has been open to commercial and
\nbusiness networks as well.<\/p>\n
Today, as you may have read somewhere else, it is estimated
\nthat the Internet consists of more than 10,000 networks, which
\naltogether include more than 3.2 million host computers
\nthroughout the world. As many as 32 million people are said to be
\nconnected to the Net at one time or another.<\/p>\n
With such a huge area to explore, and zillions of bytes of
\ndata -- worthy or otherwise -- stored with so many hosts, how do
\nyou navigate across the Net? Thanks to European Association of
\nParticle Physics, or CERN, we have the World Wide Web, or WWW.
\nWWW is nothing more than an on-going hypermedia-based project on
\nthe Internet that attempts to link all documents that exist
\nthere. It's an electronic system that will assist you in
\naccessing information on the Net. Thanks to the hypermedia links,
\nall it takes to jump over to another document stored in the same
\ncomputer, or on the other side of the globe, is a click on any
\none of the highlighted words.<\/p>\n
By now you must have also heard of Mosaic. A creation of the
\nUniversity of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing
\nApplications, or NCSA, Mosaic is simply a multimedia window on
\nthe Web that enables you to display Web's documents, which are
\ncalled 'pages' or 'sites' in Internet jargon.<\/p>\n
Is the Net a jungle? Well, in a way it is. At the moment,
\nthere's no law that governs the conduct of the people who roam
\nthe Internet. People steal other people's data, and people use
\nother people's names to harass their victims. And it is difficult
\nto establish law, since the Internet knows no national
\nboundaries. Several bills are being proposed in the U.S., which
\nwould prosecute those who, for instance, use the Net for
\ntransferring obscene materials. The bills, when they're passed
\ninto laws, will be effective only in the United States. But what
\nif a cyberpunk commits an Internet felony in Hong Kong?<\/p>\n
As Internet is worldwide in its scope, only international
\ncooperation will work in combating abuses. Thankfully, the
\nInternet Society, with its 10,000 members worldwide, has been
\nformed. It has been actively working on the Internet Code of
\nConduct, which we hope will give us some guidance on
\n\"Nettiquette\".<\/p>\n
What can you do once you're already on the Net? To start with,
\nyou can send E-mail. Special interest groups with their mailing
\nlists exist in a number approaching hundreds of thousands. You
\nsend an E-mail message to this special interest group, and the
\nlist administrator will rebroadcast it to all members of the
\ngroup.<\/p>\n
If the person you'd like to reach happens to be on line -- and
\nyou can easily check this by using the Finger software -- you can
\nask him or her to enter into the Talk mode with you. One half of
\nyour computer screen will display what you type, and the other
\nhalf what your respondent types.<\/p>\n
You also can retrieve data stored at prestigious sites, such
\nas the Library of Congress, NASA, and the National Science
\nFoundation. You can retrieve timely information without having to
\ntravel. You can shop on-line. Needless to say, these are just
\nsome of the most widely publicized advantages that you can reap
\nonce you're on the Net.<\/p>\n
Finally, the too-often raised question: What do you need in
\norder to get on the Net? Well, for starters, you have to have a
\nmodem and a telephone line. Then you have to subscribe to any of
\nthe Internet access providers in your city or town, so that you
\nwon't have to pay for long distance calls. Then you need special
\nsoftware that will open the gate to the Net; a Net browser, as
\nthey call it.<\/p>\n
The OS\/2 Warp, the 32-bit operating system from IBM, already
\ncomes with Internet access tools, including Internet's lingua
\nfranca TCP\/IP. Windows 95, which is supposed to become available
\nthis year, will include its own set. Therefore, chances are you
\nwon't have to buy commercial Internet access software. However,
\nif you don't want to move over to Warp, or cannot wait for
\nWindows 95, you have other choices, such as the award-winning
\nNetscape Navigator from Netscape Communications Corp.<\/p>\n
However, don't get too excited too soon, folks. Net surfing
\ncan be frustrating, the wait for a file to download can be
\nforever, and the time that you may be wasting can be enormous.
\nJust be aware that the road to Internet is still rocky at best.<\/p>\n
Zatni Arbi is a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of
\nSciences (LIPI).<\/p>",
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