the internet and the world wide web [fall 2012 rtf 319 session 04]
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The Internet & World Wide WebWilliam J. MonerSeptember 12, 2012RTF 319 – Intro to Digital Media
Agenda
• Lab notes & other administrivia• The origins and evolution of the
Internet• The origins and evolution of “nerd
culture”• The emergence of the World Wide Web
Reading Due Today
• Manovich, L. (2002). The Language of New Media. pp. 115 – 160• Kleinrock, L. (2010). An Early History of the
Internet.
RECOMMENDED• Okin, JR. (2005). The Internet Revolution:
The Not-For-Dummies Guide to the History, Technology, and Use of the Internet. Chapter 3.• Jordan, T. (1999). Cyberpower: The culture
and politics of cyberspace and the Internet. Chapter 2.
The Internet
A NETWORK OF NETWORKS• Emerged from a peculiar combination
of government research, commercial interest, and enthusiastic early adopters who shaped the medium to include many forms of communication
ARPANET
• Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency• Basic premise: • Decentralize information resources• Provide failsafe message routing (if a
network connection fails or is breached for any reason)
• Based on pioneering research at Xerox PARC (JCR Licklider & Robert Taylor)
THE MYTH
• ARPANET exists to provide for information resources to be available in the case of nuclear attack…
THE REALITY
In case of nuclear attack … boom.
Bob Taylor, Xerox PARC (2009)• Programmers really just wanted to be
able to see information from multiple resources on one screen• Many of the early experiments were
“bottom up” innovations[Taylor is a UT grad. See Kleinrock (2010) for full details on the early Internet!]
ARPANET’s Beginnings• Started with four nodes on the West
Coast• UCLA // SRI (Menlo Park, CA)• Expanded to University of Utah & UC
Santa Barbara
ARPANET PROPOSAL
Core concept: Packet Switching
• As opposed to circuit switching via analog phone lines or telegraphs• Circuit switching : direct line, point to
point• Packet switching • Takes the contents of a data
message, breaks it into evenly-segmented packets, and distributes it via the best route possible• Message is assembled at the
receiving end
TCP/IP
Pioneered by Vint Cerf (Stanford) and Bob Kahn (DARPA)
TCP/IP (1970s)
• Introduced as the official Internet transfer protocol in 1983; developed throughout 70s
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)• Handles the “breaking apart” of
messages into packets for transport• Handles routing through the best
possible route
TCP/IP
Internet Protocol (IP)• Handles addressing• 127.0.0.1 is an IP address• Go to http://whatismyip.com to find
out your own IP address for your current Internet session
TCP/IP
• Imagine a thousand UPS trucks taking a thousand different packets through hundreds of different routes• Each time a packet hits a router, the
router determines the next best path for the data to take• The receiving computer re-assembles
the packets, in order, to form the complete message
DNS (1983)
• Domain Name Servers• Provide translation from numeric IP
addresses to “plain language” addresses• e.g. 206.76.109.52 might translate to
nameserver.utexas.edu• We use the name // the computer uses
the numbers
Email (early 1970s)
• Ray Tomlinson• Introduced the @ symbol to common
vernacular• First “killer app” for the Internethttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120364591
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
• Early file transfer mechanism for moving files over a network from peer to peer or from client to server
What about Bob?
• Bob Metcalfe (now a UT prof in engineering)• Invented Ethernet (the world’s most
popular network topology)• Founded 3COM, now Linksys
FIDONET & BBS (late 1970s)
BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS • Dial-in to a private telephone number
with a modem attached• Log-in with a username and password (if
at all)• Exchange files, messages, play online
games, tie up phone lines• Later: mostly online via TELNET
FIDONET• Mapped network replication of data onto
peer to peer dialup connections
Two Basic Forms of Network Communications
Client/Server Technology• Requires centralized server and
attached nodes
Peer to Peer Technology (P2P)• Every computer is both client and
server; nodes are “equal”
USENET (early 1980s)
Unix Users Group• Hierarchal system for conversation and
file sharing• Still is part of the Internet (albeit rarely
utilized)• Google Groups is one organizing
structure
USENET Hierarchycomp.* – computer-related discussions humanities.* – fine arts, literature, and philosophy misc.* – miscellaneous topics news.* – discussions and announcements about news rec.* – recreation and entertainment (rec.music, rec.arts.movies)sci.* – science related discussions (sci.psychology, sci.research)soc.* – social discussions talk.* – talk about various controversial topics (talk.religion, talk.politics, talk.origins)
alt.binaries
• The USENET “alt” hierarchy existed outside of strict regulation• Became an early form of Internet-
based file sharing• Messages would need to be broken
apart into smaller file sizes and reassembled due to file size limitations
IN COMPUTING:A WORKAROUND ALWAYS EXISTS
MUDs/MUSHs/MOOs
Accessed via TELNET
MUD: Multi-User Dungeons (for D&D-style role playing games)
MUSH: Multi-User Shared Hallucinations• expanded MUD structure with user-
customizable rooms and areas through a shared scripting language
MOO: Multi-user Object Oriented (expanded MUSH structure with more robust features)
IRC (late 1980s)
• Chat-based system organized into #channels• Peer to peer file sharing capabilities• Organized chat, use of bots and other
automated tools to provide for basic games
Internet Service Providers emerge• When the Internet passed through
various steps towards commercialization (due to federal policy changes), the ISP could now connect services to a public backbone• Several hundred ISPs emerged in the
early 1990s
World Wide Web
HYPERTEXT• Everything on the World Wide Web is
rooted in a webpage that describes how content is to appear
• Hyperlinks allow for pages to link to each other on both the same server and remote servers & allows for links to content within a given page
World Wide Web
• Invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee• Based on theory by Vannevar Bush, “As
We May Think” and the work of Ted Nelson (coined the term hypertext in 1965) and Doug Englebart (worked at SRI, admired by early Internet pioneers for work on the mouse and an early hypertext system)
World Wide Web
The original proposal:• http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html• Pioneering work on HTTP protocol• HYPER TEXT TRANSFER PROTOCOL• Uses a client/server based
mechanism for sending and receiving documents• Browser = client; “website” = server• Pages can be assembled from many
different information sources or servers
The Web Browser
• Innovated first at CERN, then opened up to other research institutions• Marc Andreessen, at UIUC, worked on a
research team to develop a web browser called NCSA Mosaic• First web browser to include images
The Web Browser (pre-2000)
• Allows for display of text with markup• Allows robust linking between
documents• Allows inclusion of images, some audio
formats• Allows for third-party plugins to play
video, animations, interactive games, and applets• Includes scripting capabilities via Javascript
The Web Browser (post-2000)
• Includes the markup language (HTML)• Hypertext markup language
• Includes a style language (CSS)• Allows flexible description of colors,
fonts, layout grids, multiple backgrounds, multiple layers• Most recent version (CSS 3) includes
support for basic animation, transitions, and other visual elements
Due Monday…READING• Burgess, J., and Green, J. (2009). YouTube: Online Video and
Participatory Culture. Chs. 1 – 2• O’Reilly, T. (2005). “Web 2.0.”LABS & BLOG DUE BY MONDAY @ NOON
RECOMMENDEDBBS Textfiles: http://www.textfiles.com/ (explore at your own risk; vetted info here: http://pdf.textfiles.com/academics/
Internet pioneers:http://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/index.html
For fun: Open Terminal, type telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl and watch…