Internet

Internet

The Internet is a curious phenomenon. It's a vast international institution of critical and growing importance, yet in another sense its properties are so evanescent that it's tempting to say that Internet does not exist; there's no there there except the process itself. The reason is that at heart Internet is nothing more than a highly specific collection of rules or standards for computers called communication protocols. Even the name comes from the U.S. Department of Defense standard TCP/IP (terminal control protocol/internet protocol). What we now see as institutional Internet—the fiber optics and copper cabling, the billions of dollars of computer hardware and software, the business and governmental organizations, and body of human skill and knowledge that's both on the Net and in the user community—emerged and grew with volcanic force inside the purely formal boundaries of the protocol system. What the protocols allowed, the world's social and economic system instantiated.

A critical part of this development was that the protocols in question were public and open, that they were standards and not products per se. This is in contrast to the course of other communications systems, such as the telephone, radio, and television, for which key components were held proprietary or otherwise regulated by patents, secrecy, and both governmental and private monopolies.

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