The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks. It uses the Internet protocol suite, called TCP/IP, which stands for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, to move data between networks and devices. Web pages, Email and file transfers all travel across it.
History of Internet
Creator: Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (protocol design); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (funding). Year: 1969.
The Internet grew from research. The research covered three topics. One topic was time-sharing of computer resources. Another was packet switching. A third was computer networks for data exchange. Paul Baran began work on packet switching at RAND in the early 1960s. DARPA, a research agency of the United States Department of Defense, paid for much of the network research that followed.
The ARPANET began with two network nodes. The nodes were joined on 29 October 1969. They linked the University of California, Los Angeles. They also linked the Stanford Research Institute. By the end of 1971, 15 sites were joined. In 1974 Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn wrote a proposal. Its title was A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication. Cerf used the word internet as shorthand for internetwork in RFC 675.
In 1982 the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized. It is called TCP/IP. It made it possible to join many networks. The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNet) gave supercomputer sites access in 1986. Commercial Internet providers appeared in 1989. They appeared in the United States and Australia. The ARPANET was retired in 1990.
In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee began writing WorldWideWeb, the first web browser, at CERN. Web pages ran as one of its services. The Internet Society (ISOC) supports the open development and use of the Internet. Services such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and email were in use long before the Web.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) sets the core standards. It does so through Request for Comments (RFC) documents. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) directs the IP address space and the Domain Name System (DNS) name space. The Internet has no single centralized governance.
Changelog and latest update
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is defined in RFC 791. It was published in September 1981. IPv4 addresses are 32 bits long. The supply of IPv4 addresses ran low as the Internet grew. So IPv6 was developed in the mid-1990s. IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses. The IETF made IPv6 a Draft Standard in December 1998.
RFC 8200 is the current IPv6 specification. It was published in July 2017. It obsoletes RFC 2460, the earlier IPv6 specification. RFC 1958 was published in June 1996. It states the design principles that guided the Internet. It describes how the Internet grew from many independent contributors.
Measured growth shows the change in use. The Internet carried 1 percent of two-way telecommunication information in 1993. It carried 51 percent by 2000. It carried more than 97 percent by 2007.1
Latest update: RFC 8200 (IPv6 specification), updated by RFC 9673, 2024-10
RFC 9673 is titled IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options Processing Procedures. The RFC Editor page gives its date as October 2024. It updates RFC 8200 and is a Proposed Standard. Routers and hosts that process IPv6 hop-by-hop options follow its procedures.
Usage examples
Devices on the Internet use Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. The Domain Name System (DNS) maps names such as www.example.com to those addresses. The examples below calculate a subnet in Python. They query DNS with dig. They check a web server response with curl. They list the addresses on a Linux machine.
import ipaddress
net = ipaddress.ip_network("203.0.113.0/24")
print(net.network_address) # 203.0.113.0
print(net.broadcast_address) # 203.0.113.255
print(net.num_addresses) # 256
host = ipaddress.ip_address("203.0.113.10")
print(host in net) # TrueThe ipaddress module comes from the Python standard library. It reads a network written in CIDR notation. The /24 suffix means the first 24 bits identify the network. The program prints the first and last address of the block. It also prints the count of 256 addresses. A test checks whether a host belongs to the network.
dig +short A www.example.com
dig +short AAAA www.example.com
dig +short MX example.com
dig +short NS example.comThe dig tool sends DNS queries from a command line. The +short option prints only the answer. A returns an IPv4 address. AAAA returns an IPv6 address. MX returns the mail servers for a domain. NS returns the name servers that host the domain's records.
curl -sI -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://www.example.com/
# prints 200 when the page loadsThe curl command sends a request over the Internet to a web server. The -I option requests only the response headers. The -o /dev/null option discards the body. The -w option prints the three-digit HTTP status code. Code 200 means the request succeeded.
ip -br addr show
# sample output
lo UNKNOWN 127.0.0.1/8 ::1/128
eth0 UP 203.0.113.10/24 fe80::1/64The ip command comes from the iproute2 package. It lists the network interfaces on a Linux system. The -br option prints a brief table. Each line shows the interface name and its state. It also shows the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in CIDR notation. The sample output shows one loopback interface and one network interface.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
A Brief History of the Internet
Internet Society
An account of the Internet from the ARPANET design and the first Internet Message Processor to the standard protocols. It names the people who built the early networks and describes how TCP/IP and the Internet Engineering Task Force developed.
Internet Protocol (RFC 791)
IETF, RFC Editor
The standard that defines the Internet Protocol version 4, including the 32-bit address format and the header fields used to route packets between networks. The page lists its date as September 1981.
IPv6 Specification (RFC 8200)
IETF, RFC Editor
The current IPv6 specification, which uses 128-bit addresses. The page is dated July 2017 and states that it obsoletes RFC 2460 and that RFC 9673 later updated it. The page is the reference for the address header format that routers read when they forward IPv6 packets.
Architectural Principles of the Internet (RFC 1958)
IETF, RFC Editor
An informational document from the Internet Architecture Board that states general principles for the design of the Internet. It was published in June 1996 and summarizes the design practice that the Internet community followed.
Internet
Wikipedia
The encyclopedia article on the global network of networks. It covers the history from the 1960s, the TCP/IP protocol suite, the roles of ICANN and the IETF, and the growth of users and traffic over time.
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