The Soviet Union During the Cold War

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There is no doubt that the Internet is the precursor of today’s technology. Thanks to this, we are able to get any kind of information in fraction of seconds with the benefit of downloading it, or send it forward to other people. However, the transferring of data from one point to another could not be efficient without a router. According to CISCO, the router “acts as a dispatcher, choosing the best path for information to travel so it’s received quickly.” In the daily life, a router basically operates the same way as post offices. Both receive packets, analyze the addresses and then send them forward to the correct destinations. All of this process makes the transportation of information faster and secure on a wide network.
There are speculations whether the Internet was a product of military defense against the Soviet Union during the Cold War or was just a development of an idea. Certainly, the beginnings of the Internet began with the Advance Research Project Network, as well known as ARPA . According to www.nethistory.info: “ARPANET was about time-sharing. Time sharing tried to make it possible for research institutions to use the processing power of other institutions’ computer when they had large calculations to do that required more power.” These researchers and scientist were trying to find a way in which they could connect different computers at the same time with the purpose to share information and resources. Therefore, they could minimize the time of processing information. Throughout the development of this research, ARPA gave birth the idea of Packet Switching, which consists of dividing the information in smaller parts. For this reason, the name packet is attributed to the information we send from a source to a ...

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...e fact that the information would go to unintentional destinations. Additionally, the router is a big time saver since it transfers the information in fraction of seconds. However, without this device, we would be caring tape with information to transfer it from one place to another as the same way people at Stanford University used to before William Yeager invented the router.

Works Cited

Cisco Networking Academy: What is a Network Switch vs. a Router http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/solutions/small_business/resource_center/articles/connect_employees_and_offices/what_is_a_network_switch/index.html Internet History Online: The beginnings of the Internet by Ian Peter http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/beginnings.html Network World: Router Man
http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2006/anniversary/032706-routerman.html?page=2

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