Caught In the Net. History of the net

I. Introduction.

The hum from one of the two cooling fans is heard slightly through the door. The lone light source is seen from Unit One in the wee hours of the night. The glow from the monitor illuminates the users face as he stares back at the upcoming image he just downloaded from the Sony Home page. This activity, downloading happens in the homes of users on a daily basis, whether it be graphic, text, or audio files . This is all possible through the cyberspace society of the Internet, a vast array of almost unlimited information. A twenty -four hour virtual society where any type of business or entertainment is possible, but like any other society there is always an element of crime .

II. Ground Zero

At the height of the Cold War, military production grew at an alarming rate. New technologies were being developed to provide protection for citizens of the United States under the banner of 'National Security.'

This image was selected as a picture of the week o...

English: ARPANET logical map circa 1977

Network problems

One of America's foremost Cold War think-tanks, the RAND Corporation, faced a unique strategic problem during the Cold War period which involved the United States military capabilities in the event of a nuclear war.

The question the RAND Corporation had to answer was 'How could U.S. authorities successfully communicate after a nuclear war?' The idea for effective communication in postnuclear America would be to have a 'command and control network', linked from city to city, state to state, military base to base. This issue could be easily solved, but the recurring problem ,even when the most highly technological material were used to armor or defend the networks switches and wiring, was always being exposed to the impact of atomic bombs , and the reduction of the network to a collective mass of useless matter.

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