The History of the Internet and Security Issues: Snippets of Interesting Things

We are on the internet everyday and use it to search for both the mundane and the serious.  We take it for granted that we can Google anything and driving directions are just a click away.  But that is not always the way it was.  There was a time before the internet.

World Wide Web Logo from: 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_Wide_Web_logo.png    

The internet began as a government project in response to the Cold War.  They were looking for a secure and consistent way to communicate between computers.  J.C.R. Licklider from MIT came up with the concept of an "intergalactic network" of computers in the early 1960's.  In 1969, ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, tried sending its first message.  The message consisted of just five letters (LOGIN), and it crashed the system after the first two were transmitted, but it was still the first communication between computers.  Eventually, a few networks were developed, expanding its use.  In 1990, when the computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, it was opened to the public and changed our lives forever.

 It would be nice if the story ended happily ever after right there.  Unfortunately, even though we have this amazing tool called the internet at our disposal, we also have new security issues called "cyber security."  Individuals that hack into the system, steal you data, corrupt you computer by installing worms or malware, "phish" for information, and generally wreak all kinds of havoc on the world of the internet user.  To avoid these issues, be sure to stay up to date on your security software and defend yourself against nefarious actors on the internet.

For more information on this snippet, see:   https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-the-internet

https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/security-awareness/cybersecurity/what-is-internet-security.html