The Internet Dilemma
Introduction
The importance of Internet is enormous and it is largely increasing. It connects people worldwide, and it provides possibilities that are impossible without it. This importance can be viewed in few aspects, most of all importance for the global economy. Considering this aspects it is of great value to make Internet accessible for all people. The difference in accessing the Internet between rich and poor countries, or the so called "digital divide" is stunningly large. Efforts to outcome these differences are made by many national and international organizations.
The most important participants are the United Nations and the European Union. In achieving this purpose many conferences have been organized by both entities. Most important of all is the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which was a series of conferences organized by UN, first held in Geneva, and second in Tunis. Further on in this project we will see that these entities are trying to make Internet accessible, but at end we will be wondering: "Is this maybe a fight for control over the Internet?" Looking through development of Internet we will try to answer this question.
I. History of Internet
"The Internet didn't just happen overnight - rather it was the end result of a search that had been in place since the late 1950s.
By the time the world started to get online in the mid 1990s, the Net had been almost 40 years in the making."
The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s that saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. The Internet began to evolve when packet-switching networks came into operation in the 1960s. When transmitted, data is broken up into small packets, sent to its destination and then reassembled. In this way a single signal can be sent to multiple users. Packets can be compressed for speed and encrypted for
The importance of Internet is enormous and it is largely increasing. It connects people worldwide, and it provides possibilities that are impossible without it. This importance can be viewed in few aspects, most of all importance for the global economy. Considering this aspects it is of great value to make Internet accessible for all people. The difference in accessing the Internet between rich and poor countries, or the so called "digital divide" is stunningly large. Efforts to outcome these differences are made by many national and international organizations.
The most important participants are the United Nations and the European Union. In achieving this purpose many conferences have been organized by both entities. Most important of all is the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which was a series of conferences organized by UN, first held in Geneva, and second in Tunis. Further on in this project we will see that these entities are trying to make Internet accessible, but at end we will be wondering: "Is this maybe a fight for control over the Internet?" Looking through development of Internet we will try to answer this question.
I. History of Internet
"The Internet didn't just happen overnight - rather it was the end result of a search that had been in place since the late 1950s.
By the time the world started to get online in the mid 1990s, the Net had been almost 40 years in the making."
The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s that saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. The Internet began to evolve when packet-switching networks came into operation in the 1960s. When transmitted, data is broken up into small packets, sent to its destination and then reassembled. In this way a single signal can be sent to multiple users. Packets can be compressed for speed and encrypted for