The Goals of the U. S. Defence Department Network - Essay Example

The Goals of the U. S. Defence Department Network Although the goals of the U. S. Defenсe Department network were to control weapons systems and transfer research files, other uses for this network began to appear, such as: telecommunication, entertainment, management and so many commercial and business activities. However, these uses were not exhaustive and always positive as some other negative uses started to emerge all over the globe. Introduction The ‘Internet’ is often regarded as new revolution in the field of networking and communications. In the contemporary era, the internet that has revolutionised communications world unlike nothing in the past. The telegraph, radio, and telephone, which were the most commonly used medium of communication the past have been shadowed by the internet. The popularity of internet has increased so much that it has become a world-wide network that has the capabilities to connect individuals via mobile/computer/smart phones/etc., irrespective of geographic constraints (Odlyzko, 2000, pp.31-56). The growth of internet can be attributed five major factors namely, technology, social, political, academic and commercial. (Yun, Lee, and Lim, 2002, p.13) Internet has evolved into a widespread information infrastructure but if one traces back its history it will be revealed that its origin is very controversial and complicated. Further, there are many factors that contributed its growth over the years including political, technology, academic, social and commercial. The objective of this study is to critically evaluate the factors that contributed to growth of internet that consequently led to the development of e-commerce as a new business practice. History of Internet In the late 1950s ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) was formed in United States whose primary aims was to develop technologies that could endure any nuclear attack. A meeting between the private sector contractors, ARPA university with the representatives of US DOD (Department of Defence) in the year 1967 determined the possible protocols to be used when information exchange would take place via computers. This lead to the development of ARPANET in the year 1969. This network initially connected four sites – Stanford Research Institute, University of California (in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara), and University of Utah. Most of the 70’s were dedicated by researchers to the development of protocols for moving messages across system of networks, controlling network connections and also allowing remote access to networks. The year 1972 is historically very significant because in this year the first electronic mail which was sent when the computers were connected to roughly two dozen sites. The internet was soon starting to be widely considered as new organisational form in society and by 1975 the number of messages and sites mushroomed to 63. By the beginning of the 80’s, about 200 host computers were used to connect over 20,000 people at government, military, and universities. The goal of US Department of Defence networks was to transfer research files and control the weapon systems. Twelve year hence from 1980, the number of host systems had multiplied into millions globally and many other uses of internet emerged like medium of entertainment, telecommunication, and many other commercial and business activities (Cohen-Almagor, 2011, pp.45-64). Factors Influencing the Growth & Development of Internet The internet has grown enormously in the last couple of decades and is still continuing to grow at rapid rate. If an individual studies the history and development of the internet it will be found that the evolution of the internet can be attributed to five major factors discussed as follows: 1. Political Political factors have surrounded the internet from the very beginning when ARPANET was developed to handle transfer of confidential research files between selected US networks and also control the weapon system in US Defence department. While many considers politics as an old institution where different parties debates on general economic and macro-economic factors such perspective has changed in the recent years mainly due to advancement of technology. Earlier it was very difficult for common citizens to contact the government but with the help of internet common man can contact the government easily through online petitions, emails, social networking, etc. A critical analysis of political factor contributing growth and evolution of internet reveals the following: Online Petitions – In the past, petition were sent to the government in a sheet of paper that has to be signed by a person or authority in order to reach the government. The process was very lengthy and included many intermediary persons that restricted direct contact between the government and the petitioner. Since the time government introduced online petition the number of people taking part in this process also increased massively. This technology has thus significantly popularised internet among people. e-mail – This is probably the most used form of internet technology that is used by the government for internal and external communication in modern times. The reason this has contributed to political growth is due to external communication which let the government with the different representatives of state. Had the e-mail was not used today as basic communication then exchange of messages between two states in traditional snail mail would be very time consuming and costly. Thus, e-mail has proved to be an easy, quick, and cost-efficient method of communication for the government. Not to mention the fact that on any particular day the government has to transfer or send many important documents/files/etc. from one department to another which were often criticised to be lost along the way. Social Networks – Now a day’s most of the political parties use Facebook and twitter to communicate with the society. The uses of this technology by the government has increased the popularity of internet in modern world and facilitated the communication between main political parties and the government. With the passage of time political spending on the internet has also increased. Many candidates and their supporters are experimenting with the ability of World Wide Web to reach potential supporters. 2. Academic One of the major factors contributing to the growth of internet is the academic application. The academic students use the internet to find reliable information on specific subject. The reliable academic information are available in form of journals, articles, e-books, snippets, etc. that can be accessed from different databases like science direct and ebsco. Google Scholar is also an excellent tool that is used by many academic students to extract scholarly articles and journals. The internet has become very popular to the students of modern times who prefer online libraries over traditional libraries. Academic culture has contributed to the extensive use of internet in recent times by the students who use internet to seek reliable information and use these information to complete their homework. The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is widely used almost throughout all education faculties from primary schools to universities. The students can use this technology to submit their homework and other tasks to be marked especially when they are finding it difficult to track down their tutors. Many have criticised that VLEs can eliminate the necessity of keeping teacher and could also affect the quality of students’ work. However, VLEs have been found to be very useful for IT related subjects where students don’t need to carry subject specifications since they will be able to access it from VLE. Digital Libraries – It works very similar to physical or real libraries that consists of thousands of e-books that the users can browse and borrow for certain period. However, the advantage of digital libraries is that there are no risk of fines for late returns since the book will automatically be removed from the library of the user once the requested time for borrowing expires. There are additional advantages that popularised digital library usage among students like unlimited access after one time subscription. There is also an option to buy the book if the subscriber want to purchase or own the book. They are very easy to use and as they require use of Wi-Fi connections to connect to library, more Wi-Fi hotspots have to be introduced that will increase accessibility. 3. Technological The advancement of technology has contributed to the growth and development of internet that made it safer and faster to use. Some factors like packet switching, DNS, search engines, and mobile devices fuelled tremendous growth of internet. The packet switching technology splits data into smaller units when they are sent from source to destination. This ensures safer, quicker transfer of information because without packet switching internet communication would not be safe and people would not be encouraged to use it. Again quick access to information would not be possible without proper DNS or Domain Name Server. DNS maps server address with aliases/names which are much more easy to remember than the numbers. For instance, a typical DNS looks like 172.19.168.4 which is very hard and inconvenient to remember; but a domain name of server.co.uk on the other hand is easy to remember. Thus, domain names and packet switching technology has contributed significantly to the growth of internet. Search engines have also popularised the use of internet. A search engine is a tool that searches for a specific website(s) based on the search criteria provided by the user. The reason that search engines have contributed to the growth of internet by popularising it is that before the emergence of search engines people had to search for particular websites/information from other directories which required remembering correct path which was often harder for the user to keep in mind. In more recent times, the focus of people for using the internet has shifted from desktop computers to more mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Not the mention how the cell phones are becoming popular among the young generations, perhaps it is one of the best way to reach the young bloods. The customers will be regularly updated about the delivery in progress and also they will get to know about new offers on their handsets without having to visit the stores. Thus, it provides the customer the convenience to check the availability of product, price, and location of store without a desktop computer. 4. Social Before the emergence of social networking sites the internet was generally perceived as a place where people can find some information very fast. But this kind of information exchanging database is an example of one-way communication where the people make queries and server send response to queries with most matching results. The advent of social networking provided people to communicate in two-way that increased the popularity of using the internet. Social networking sites such as the twitter or the Facebook allows people to follow, like other’s opinions and also spread messages and awareness. These social media websites have also become an excellent medium for advertising too and many big small to large brands now are showing increasing interest to reach their customers. Websites like YouTube allows users to post videos and also share them publicly which made it a destination where almost anything can be found. These videos are not uploaded by any specific company but by different individuals that have shown interest on the platform. Many students use the YouTube videos to grasp academic concepts. The website is used by millions to watch sports, listing to music, post personal experiences, tourist videos, and many more. There is no doubt that after the launch of YouTube in 2005 by former PayPal employees, internet usage increased rapidly that contributed to overall growth of internet by increasing interest among general people and motivating them to use internet freely. The Voice over Internet Protocol or popularly known as VoIP also popularised internet usage in recent times. The technology allows individuals to communicate using voice chat over the internet. The technology is very cost efficient and has increased popularity of internet use globally. Skype is the most used VoIP software that allows video communication between two or more people from anywhere that has computer connected to internet. 5. Commercial One of the main reason for the growth and development of internet at present can be attributed to the growing interest of people to use the internet for buying goods and services. The history of e-commerce started with the invention of buying and selling computers, modems, cables, and other electrical tools. The internet was commercialised in the year 1991 which increased the scope of ecommerce as by this time thousands of businesses across different sectors have already began to use the internet and thus the growth of internet had already begun from the early 90’s. But even though the internet was commercialised in 1991, secured HTTP (hypertext transfer protocols) protocols was developed much later in 1998. The HTTP allowed rapid access secure and rapid access to internet connection. By the end of 2001, Business-to-Business (B2B) started that experience transactions worth $700 billion marking it as the largest form of e-commerce. The sales of e-commerce continuously experienced growth from 2001 to 2005 and by 2007, sales through e-commerce accounted almost 3.5 percent of total sales in United States. Amazon and eBay were among the few companies that initially provided a platform for customers to make electronic transactions with the help of internet. This model where the seller interacts with the retail customers directly to provide goods and services is known as the Business-to-Customers e-commerce model (Leiner, 2009, pp.28-29). The reasons due to which e-commerce has become so popular is due to the convenience it provides to the users. The customer selects the goods available online and then places order. Upon successful completion of receiving order from customer, the database is automatically updated and the customer is asked to provide his/her address and contact number. The customer is given the option to either pay online or make payment on delivery. It is the responsibility of the company to ensure that the goods transferred reaches customer’s address on time. When the customer enters the address, the database tries to locate the nearest store from that address. The delivery would take place from that store to customer’s given address. An expected date of delivery is given to customer based on the current inventory level. It should be maintained strictly if the company wants to keep its goodwill. The transaction processing system at the client-end automatically takes the order if the item is available in store and provides the customer a unique order number and details of processed order about the quantity, size, price of item, etc. The status of order is communicated to the customer through e-mail or text message. Thus, the customer has the advantage of buying products from anywhere in the world without personalized interaction as in brick-and-mortar stores. Thus, the convenience of 24x7 service, option of home delivery of products, etc. has motivated customers to use the internet for shopping. Development of E-Commerce The study reveals that e-commerce was introduced four decades ago and it is still growing till date with the advancement of technology and innovation. The satisfaction level of the users also increased overtime as internet connection became more secured. Some of the important milestones that contributed to the growth of the Internet and consequently led to the development of E-Commerce as a new business practice are discussed as follows: Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) – The time period 1960-82 witnessed the development of EDI that helped to replace traditional faxing and mailing of documents using digital transfer of data from one work station to another. The system uses VAN (Value-Added Network) that examines that where data has to be sent. This technology was invented by English innovator and entrepreneur, Michael Aldrich. B2B – The time period 1982-90 witnessed emergence of B2B online transactions that attracted many buyers and sellers as the model was commercially lucrative. But B2C was not possible during this time because before 90’s very limited high profile entities had access to computers that have internet connection. In the year 1982, France introduced its own version of internet called Minitel. By the end of 1999, Minitel reported approximately 25 million users that were inter-connected via Minitel terminals. 1990-Present – In the year 1990, Robert Cailliau and his friend Tim Berners Lee published a proposal to create a protocol for internet (“Hypertext Project”) which they named the “World Wide Web”. In the same year NeXT computers and Lee created first web server and browser. In the year 1991, commercialisation of the internet was allowed when National Science Foundation lifted the restrictions that it had put earlier. The online shopping was not very popular when it was first introduced due to security and authenticity issues. But after the development of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) security protocol concerns and hesitations with online shopping reduced. Two most important milestones in the history that revolutionised internet use and growth was the inception of Yahoo in 1995 and most popular search engine, Google, in 1998 in US. In the following years, Companies that were able to get directories successfully started to offer services to customers directly without any broker or whole-sellers, with the help of their own ecommerce platform. Thus the growth of technology applied on internet consequently led to development of e-commerce as new business practice. Conclusion Research reveals that the goal of US Department of Defence were to transfer research files and control weapon system. Online transactions gained traction during the period 1982-90 due to the fact that B2B transactions are commercially lucrative as they are cost-efficient. In the year 1991, internet was commercialised that helped to push its growth globally to individuals. Political factors have surrounded the internet from the very beginning when ARPANET was developed but now many political candidates and their supporters are experimenting with the ability of World Wide Web to reach potential supporters (Leiner, 1997, pp.102-108). The academic students use the internet to find reliable information on specific subject. Academic culture has contributed to the extensive use of internet in recent times by the students who use internet to seek reliable information and use these information to complete their homework. The advancement of technology has contributed to the growth and development of internet that made it safer and faster to use. The advent of social networking provided people to communicate in two-way that increased the popularity of using the internet. Thus, the study critically evaluates how the internet has grown and evolved overtime from a tool of US Defence Department network’s tool to control weaponry system and transferring confidential research files in the early 80’s to developed marketplaces where e-commerce is perceived as modern business practice globally. Table of Contents Introduction 1 History of Internet 2 Factors Influencing the Growth & Development of Internet 3 Development of E-Commerce 10 Conclusion 12 References 14 Bibliography 15 References Cohen-Almagor, R., 2011. “Internet History”. International Journal of Technoethics, 2(2). Leiner, B. M., et al., 2009. A Brief History of the Internet. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~almeroth/classes/F10.176A/papers/internet-history-09.pdf. [Accessed on March 14, 2014]. Heng, M., 2003. “UNDERSTANDING ELECTRONIC COMMERCE FROM A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE”. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Volume 12. Leiner, B. M., et al., 1997. The Past and Future History of the Internet. [Pdf]. Available at: http://ccrg.soe.ucsc.edu/CMPE252A/FALL2012/PAPERS/history1.pdf. [Accessed on March 14, 2014]. Odlyzko, A. M., 2007. Internet traffic growth: Sources and implications. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/itcom.internet.growth.pdf. [Accessed on March 14, 2014]. Odlyzko, A., 2000. The history of communications and its implications for the Internet. [Pdf]. Available at: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/1525/history_communications2.pdf. [Accessed on March 14, 2014]. Yun, K., Lee, H., and Lim, S., 2002. The Growth of Broadband Internet Connections in South Korea: Contributing Factors. [Pdf]. Available at: http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/20032/Yun.pdf. [Accessed on March 14, 2014]. Bibliography Keefer, A. and Baiget, T., No Date. How it all began: a brief history of the Internet. [Pdf]. Available at: http://bd.ub.edu/pub/keefer/materials/Keefer01_How%20it%20began.pdf. [Accessed on March 14, 2014]. Read More