e. WHAT IS THE INTERNET? The term Internet is derived from inter and network. It's a vast network of globally interconnected networks. If one part of the Internet is down, routers send traffic on alternate routes. It's a survivable, robust network with parts of it able to function during natural disasters and attacks. The United States Department of Defense funded the original Internet with the intention of having a robust network able to survive an attack or national disaster. They awarded money to the University of California at Santa Barbara for the purpose of developing a resilient network. In addition, faculty in the IT department at the University of Michigan collaborated on new protocols to be used in the Internet. At that time, 1969 until the mid-1990s, researchers at universities and government agencies were the main users of the Internet. They used it to collaborate on research. Additionally, staff at universities used the Internet to access early forms of electronic mail (e-mail) www.TechnicalPDF.com using arcane commands such as k to display the previous message and n to display the next message. Logging into the Internet and using e-mail acquired a user-friendly interface when Tim Burners Lee developed the Nexus browser in 1989. Examples of browsers include Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Mosaic and Netscape were early browsers. Easily accessible, user-friendly browsers are a large part of the reason that the Internet was widely adopted. Features of the Internet The following are some of the most prominent features of the Internet: It uses a common set of IP protocols It is a packet network Routers send packets on the least congested routes Routers send packets around disabled, broken links It has defined protocols, such as IPv4 and IPv6 for addressing It can grow to keep up with growing amounts of traffic The backbone is made up of fiber-optical cabling connected to electronics in which capacity can be increased, often using software at remote data centers The United States federal government