Today, the Internet has entered our lives so firmly that many simply don’t notice it. It is difficult for the younger generation to imagine that until recently, communication of people took place exclusively with the help of landlines, which seemed a great blessing. The life of the inhabitants of the planet has changed dramatically since the mid 90's. The topic of the article: "Interesting facts about the Internet" - with its blogs, social networks and online stores.
History of creation
Prototypes of modern computers have spread even in the 50s of the last century. However, only in the 60s was the first project to create an Arpanet network reminiscent of the modern World Wide Web. The computers of three universities in California were connected together. In 1990, high-speed cable was first laid between Europe and the United States.
Introducing you to interesting facts about the creation of the Internet, you can not say about the date of his birth and the person who is considered the named father of the World Wide Web. In the photo we see Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist who created the HTTP protocol, the first web browser still stored on the Web, and the HTML language. The year 1991 is considered the year of birth of the Internet. It was this year, on August 6, that the first website was created.
Initially, browsers did not work with multimedia and computer graphics, only text messages were available to them.
Interesting facts about the Internet
Initially, the system was created so that it could be used by state bodies and governments. But after a few years, providers began to use the Internet for commercial purposes, turning it into a global network.
Today, fiber-optic cable connects almost the entire civilized world. Intercontinental channels run along the ocean floor. In 2008, there were several serious accidents with cables laid over land. A case of 2011 is known when a resident of Georgia, digging the earth in search of copper, damaged a fiber optic trunk with a shovel, disconnecting all of Armenia and part of Georgia from the network.
Currently, there are projects providing the Internet to the most remote corners of the globe. All of them are related to the work of satellites:
- Google Loon Google Corporation intends to raise balloons to an altitude of 18 km to cover the Internet throughout the Earth.
- SpaceX project. The company plans to launch 4 thousand satellites into space, which will ensure the universal operation of Wi-Fi.
A bit about computers
Today, 17 billion different devices are connected to the Network: these are personal computers (PCs) and other gadgets. In 2015, the number of Internet users amounted to 3 billion people, while the output from mobile devices for the first time exceeded the same figure from a PC. Contemporaries of the 90s could not even dream that they would receive a pocket mini-computer in the form of a smartphone. And the current PC will be ten times as powerful as the equipment with which a man was landed on the moon.
Interesting facts about the computer and the Internet concern the invention of the PC. The first desktop microcomputer was invented by Konrad Zuse (photo below), it was called Z1. This happened in 1936. Three years later, Z2 appeared, which fully functioned as an electromechanical computer.
In 1975, Ed Roberts (USA) created the Altair-8800, which is considered to be the prototype of a modern PC, although debates about who to give primacy in this matter are still ongoing.
About security
The first computer virus that went beyond a single PC was Rother J. Today, 70% of malware is created by members of a criminal syndicate.
Since the end of the 20th century, the terrible word "hacker" has appeared in the everyday life of Internet users, which is associated with a computer cracker that can destroy a business. In fact, this is a very heterogeneous environment. Among hackers, there are those who check the reliability of the system to eliminate the vulnerability that has appeared.
By the way, regular software updates are very important for PC security. Sometimes this is the only thing that can be opposed to an attacker.
What other interesting facts about Internet security should you know? Is a global attack possible to bring down the entire network? You will be surprised, but in the world there are real keys to the World Wide Web - cards containing a secret code. With their help, you can completely restart the Internet. They are located at seven people who, if necessary, will be instantly delivered to one of the military bases of the United States to disable the global network.
The fastest internet
To date, there is a Google Fiber project, the purpose of which is to bring home Internet speed up to 1000 Mbps. And what are today's indicators? So, in South Korea, which tops the list of countries with the highest connection speeds to the Network, the speed was 26.1 Mbit / s.
And what other interesting facts about the Internet will tell about its development in other countries? 2 and 4 places in terms of Internet speed is occupied by Scandinavia. The ranking includes Sweden (2), Denmark (3) and Norway (4). By the way, according to the British site Cable.com, the leader is Singapore. But the remaining places in the list almost coincide with generally accepted indicators. The top ten are exclusively European countries, including Romania (5), Belgium (6) and Holland (7). But overall, the Asian region is leading.
Russia took only 47th place in the Cable.com list.
About censorship
Initially, the Internet was free from any censorship. This is not the case today. There are countries where YouTube is completely banned, for example, to which each user can upload their videos. Interesting facts about the Internet include information that up to 300 hours of various videos are uploaded to the portal daily. It takes 16 years for everyone to watch new videos in just one year.
It is known that governments of countries constantly have conflicts with Internet corporations because of the desire to have access to classified information. So, the United States government regularly encounters Apple, etc.
There is censorship in Russia. Since 2012, the country has blacklisted sites, and Roskomnadzor has the right, at its discretion, to block any of them.
The Chinese government strictly filters the contents of the Web and restricts access to foreign resources, including Facebook, Twitter and even Google. In 2016, the country adopted a law on cybersecurity, which allows you to actually “close” any inappropriate content.
In North Korea, the layman can use only the Kwanmen national network, and only some organizations and government representatives have full access to the Network. The 25 millionth country has just 1.5 registered IP addresses.
About Internet Addiction
Interesting facts about this side of life during the World Wide Web era, unfortunately, cause concern. For the first time, talking about this phenomenon back in 1995, Ivan Goldberg, an American psychiatrist. He noticed the obsessive desire of some people to constantly be on the Web, spending most of the time there. Goldberg equated this craving for drug addiction, alcoholism and gambling.
Today, Internet addiction is considered a form of mental disorder. There are known deaths caused by this addiction. For example, in 2015, a high school student in Bashkiria died due to a thrombus. A teenage athlete, forced to interrupt the training process due to an injury, sat at the monitor for almost 22 days. He turned off the computer exclusively during sleep. Excessive enthusiasm prevented me from seeing a doctor on time, which led to the tragedy.
The most popular resources where Internet addicts spend time are social networks. In 2009, users spent 2 hours a day in them, in 2011 - 5.5, and today almost all day. They are actively struggling with the problem in China, where everyone who spends time on the Web for more than 6 hours is recognized as dependent and in need of rehabilitation.
What else to know
E-mail, IP-telephony, video calling and other features of the Web have brought the world closer. But there are also such interesting facts about the Internet: Russian citizens use only 6% of its information portals, because 55% of the data is presented in English on foreign resources.
On the Internet there are “surface networks” (Surface Web) available to search engines; “Invisible network” (Deep Web), where confidential information is stored; as well as the “Dark Web” (Deep Web) where you can penetrate from the Tor browser.