INTERNET AND EMAIL

Chapter Objectives
Define the term internet

1. Explain the development of internet

2. Describe the importance of internet
3. Describe internet connectivity
4. Identify internet services
5. Access internet
6. Use e-mail facilities
7. State the moral, social and spiritual issues that may emerge through access to the internet

Definition of Internet
INTERNET (Short for internetwork- interconnection of computers.) - The internet is a global network of
computers providing a variety of resources (communication (email, IM), search, entertainment, etc) and data
to users. A network is a group of computers and associated devices that are connected by communications
facilities. A network can be as small as a local area network consisting of a few computers, printers, and other
devices, or it can consist of many small and large computers distributed over a vast geographic area.

- Types of Networks

1. LAN(local area network) - Is a network within a small area such as lab, school, depart or org.
2. MAN(metropolitan area network) - interconnection of computers within a town or city
3. WAN(wide area network) - within different orgs, large geographical areas or globally.

- Global Village - a term used to describe the easy connectivity between people across the globe due to the
development of the internet.

- Information superhighway/net/cyber space - terms used to describe the internet due to its large size and
great volume of information.

- Packet switching - splitting a piece of data into smaller sections called packets each labeled with its own
destination. Packets are sent through different routes(routing) but they all reach the same destination. Then,
they are reassembled at the destination computer.

- NCP - Network Control Protocol - A standard that handles network communication tasks such as routing,
error control and polling (checking available terminals).

- Protocol - a set of rules/standards that govern how computers send and receive data/information on a
network. We need protocols to: minimize errors, ensure reliability and compatibility in computer
communications. Example: OSI model.
- TCP - Transmission Control Protocol - is the basis of the internet. Is a protocol within TCP/IP that governs the
breakup of data messages into packets to be sent via IP, and the reassembly and verification of the complete
messages from packets received by IP. TCP corresponds to the transport layer in the ISO/OSI model.

- IP – Internet Protocol – a protocol within the network layer that routes messages across the network.

- Hypertext - non-sequential organization of text so that related items are connected or text displayed on
screen that has references to other text that the user can immediately access. The connections are called
links. Invented by Tim Berners Lee.

- WWW - World Wide Web - a collection of internet sites and servers that offer text and graphics and
sound/audio and video resources through the HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol). Documents and files on
WWW are formatted using HTML (hypertext markup language).

Brief History of the Development of the Internet

At the beginning: ARPANET

The story of the Internet, and networking in general, can be traced back to the late 1950s. The US was in the
depths of the Cold War with the USSR, and each nation closely watched the other to determine which would
gain a military or intelligence advantage. In 1957, the Soviets surprised the US with the launch of Sputnik,
propelling us into the space age. In response to Sputnik, the US Government created the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA), whose initial role was to ensure that the US was not surprised again. It was from
ARPA, now called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that the Internet first sprang.

ARPA was the center of computing research in the 1960s, but there was just one problem: many of the
computers could not talk to each other. In 1968, ARPA sent out a request for proposals for a communication
technology that would allow different computers located around the country to be integrated together into
one network. Twelve companies responded to the request, and a company named Bolt, Beranek, and
Newman (BBN) won the contract. They began work right away and were able to complete the job just one
year later: in September, 1969, the ARPANET was turned on. The first four nodes were at UCLA, Stanford, MIT,
and the University of Utah.

The Internet

Over the next decade, the ARPANET grew and gained popularity. During this time, other networks also came
into existence. Different organizations were connected to different networks. This led to a problem: the
networks could not talk to each other. Each network used its own proprietary language, or protocol to send
information back and forth. This problem was solved by the invention of transmission control
protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP). TCP/IP was designed to allow networks running on different protocols to
have an intermediary protocol that would allow them to communicate. So as long as your network supported
TCP/IP, you could communicate with all of the other networks running TCP/IP. TCP/IP quickly became the
standard protocol and allowed networks to communicate with each other. It is from this breakthrough that we
first got the term Internet, which simply means “an interconnected network of networks.”
As we moved into the 1980s, computers were added to the Internet at an increasing rate. These computers
were primarily from government, academic, and research organizations. Much to the surprise of the
engineers, the early popularity of the Internet was driven by the use of electronic mail (see sidebar below).

The World Wide Web

Using the Internet in these early days was not easy. In order to access information on another server, you had
to know how to type in the commands necessary to access it, as well as know the name of that device. That all
changed in 1990, when Tim Berners-Lee introduced his World Wide Web project, which provided an easy way
to navigate the Internet through the use of linked text (hypertext). The World Wide Web gained even more
steam with the release of the Mosaic browser in 1993, which allowed graphics and text to be combined
together as a way to present information and navigate the Internet. The Mosaic browser took off in popularity
and was soon superseded by Netscape Navigator, the first commercial web browser, in 1994. The Internet and
the World Wide Web were now poised for growth.

Importance of Internet

1. E-mail - the transmission of messages using the internet and email addresses. Compared to postal mail, it is
fast, reliable, affordable and convenient.

2. E-banking - access of bank accounts through the internet.

3. E-business & E-commerce - allows customers to access merchandise and their prices and purchase them
online.

4. E-learning - students get info & materials without having to join or travel to education centers.

5. Information retrieval - The Internet is a library. Thousands of books, magazines, newspapers and
encyclopedias can be read on the Internet.

6. Communication – Many people all over the world use the Internet to communicate with each other.
Internet communication capabilities include; E-mail, Usenet Newsgroups, Chatting and Telnet. You can send
e-mails to your friends anywhere in the world, chat with your friends, send instant messages, etc.

Problems Associated With the Use of Internet

1. Availability of harmful info that can lead to drug trafficking, child abuse or access to pornographic materials.

2. Information overload - excessive amount of information is available to users, which can overwhelm them.
Humans can only process a limited amount of information leading to Information Fatigue Syndrome. This leads
to stress and lack of concentration
3. Security of information is not guaranteed due to computer viruses, and black-hat hacking. This can result to
loss of privacy, data loss and financial damages. Information Terrorism is the penetration of an organization's
network by computer hackers.

4. Abuse of copyright law - illegal distribution of copyrighted information such as books, music and videos.

5. Intrusion of people's privacy (through cyber stalking and hacking), distribution of false information and fake
news.

6. Erosion of social culture - the use of internet has eroded the social fabric. People text instead of talking so
people are not developing communication and social skills gained through interpersonal communication.

7. Enormous strain on electrical power grids to power server farms.

Requirements for Internet Connectivity

- You require the following to make use of the internet: A computer system, transmission media, modem,
ISP.

1. Computer System connected to a LAN or wireless network.

2. Transmission media - these are telecommunication facilities such as telephone lines.

3. Modem - Means Modulator and Demodulator. This device is able to convert digital data to analog
(modulation) for transmission through the transmission media, which handles analog data only. It also
reconverts the analog signal to digital form (demodulation) for the recipient computer. A modem should have
enough speed to send and receive information. (DIAGRAM). Other functions of the modem include: auto
answering, data compression, flash memory, fax capability.

4. ISP (Internet Service Provider) - are companies offering internet services to users. e,g Safaricom, Jamii
Telkom, Liquid Telcom, Airtel.

5. Internet Software/Web browser - software that facilitates the communication between the millions of
computers on the internet. A web browser enables a user to view HTML documents on the World Wide Web,
another network, or the user's computer; follow the hyperlinks among them; and transfer files, receive and
send emails.

INTERNET SERVICES
- Some of the services provided by the internet include:

1. WWW - Many organizations have websites which are used for:

- Advertisements

- Announcing events and posting information

- E-commerce e.g. e-Bay, Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba.

- E-learning (providing education services through the internet) e.g. stanford.edu, Khan Academy.

2. E-commerce - Conducting of business services such as sales of goods and services over the internet.
ADVANTAGES

1. Offers a wide variety of goods and services unlike physical stores.

2. Convenience - limited movement when ordering and delivering goods.

3. Affordable goods - conducting business online eliminates cost associated with physical stores such as rent
and utilities.

4. Provides a wide market for commodities since they are not limited to a physical location.

DISADVANTAGES

1. Fraud - goods purchased may be different from the ones delivered. There may not be any deliveries at all in
some cases.

2. Requires enormous computer resources in order to accommodate transactions.

3. Security concerns - e-commerce requires electronic payments which can result to exposure of confidential
financial information if the network is not secure.

4. They may be considerable delays if the vendor's warehouse is located far away.

3. E-learning - involves providing education to learners through the internet.

ADVANTAGES

1. Convenience - involves less travel and physical materials such as books.

2. Students can register in schools across the world without leaving their home country

3. Learners can learn at their own pace.

4. E-learning is interactive - it engages the user through assignments and progress reports.

5. Can handle vast volumes of students since computer systems can scale cheaply compared to traditional
institutions.
DISADVANTAGES

1. Requires knowledge on how to operate computer systems.

2. Many people are still fond of traditional learning done through classrooms and print media.

3. Reduce social and cultural interaction among students and teachers resulting to less consultation.

4. Electronic Mail (e-mail)

5. Online chatting

6. File transfer

7. Information retrieval

8. Video conferencing

9. Discussion groups – online forums/newsgroups

10. Entertainment – games, music, movies

DEFINITIONS
1. Sign-in/Log-in - process of authenticating a user to an online service e.g email or account using a username
and a password. A secure password should have at least 8 characters including lower and uppercase letters,
numerals and special characters. One should not use one password across all online services.

2. Sign-up - The process of setting up a new account to an online service such as email. Signing-up requires
details such as first name, last name, gender, email, username, password and address.

3. Surf/Browse - is the activity of viewing or accessing data on the internet. We use a browser or internet
software to browse the web/internet. e,g Google chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox, MS explorer

4. Hyperlink - a connection/link between one webpage and another. Hyperlinks help navigate webpages.

5. Search Engine - a program that searches for keywords in files and documents found on the WWW. e.g
Google Search, Bing, Yahoo.

6. Downloading - process of retrieving information from the internet and saving it on a computer. e,g
downloading a music file from a website.

7. Uploading - process of transferring information to the internet e.g uploading a photo on Facebook.
EMAIL
- A service that transmits messages using the internet or a system that enables sending & receiving of
messages electronically through computer networks.

- Example of an email address. [email protected]. Parts: username, @, host name, period(.), domain.
[email protected]

- A domain is an address of a network connection in the format that identifies the owner of that address in a
hierarchical format: server.organization.type . For example, www.whitehouse.gov identifies the Web server
at the White House, which is part of the U.S. government.

- Common domains

.com commercial google.com

.edu educational institutions caltech.edu

.ac academic institutions ku.ac

.org non-profit organizations pbs.org

.mil US military organization

- When 2 letters are added after a domain they indicate the location where the site is located. e,g ku.ac.ke for
Kenyatta University located in Kenya, ab.fr for a site located in France.

- Email providers: Google, Yahoo, MSN.

Example

lat @africaonline . co.ke

A B C D

A – Name of the individual or organization

B – Name of the host computer in the network on which the e-mail account is
hosted
C – Identifies the type of the organization or institution offering a particular service,
i.e. commercial organization
D – Name of the country where the site is located, i.e. Kenya

FEATURES OF EMAIL SOFTWARE

1. Compose - used for creating a new email to send to a client

2. Check mail/ inbox - accesses the received emails.

3. Forward - sends a copy of the email to a recipient(s)

4. Send - used to dispatch an email after composing

5. Attachment - allows one to send video, pictures and other files as part of an email.

6. Outbox – stores messages waiting to be sent.

7. Spam – filters out unwanted messages.

8. Trash – stores deleted messages for a period of time.

9. Draft – stores messages that are still being composed or composed partially.

Examples of e-mail software

1. Microsoft Outlook
2. Microsoft Exchange
3. Zoho Mail
4. ProtonMail
5. Google Workspace

ADVANTAGES OF EMAIL over traditional mail.

1. Faster: - The delivery of an e-mail message normally takes seconds or

minutes depending on the distance to the receiver

2. One can send an email to many people at the same time.

3. Email is a more secure service – access to a user’s mailbox can be restricted by use of a password

4. Cheap & economical: -It costs almost nothing to transmit and e-mail
message over the network. There is no need for stamps, envelopes, etc

5. One can send a variety of information such as video, text & audio.

6. Convenient - one can send an email from anywhere so long as they are online and one can respond to sent
messages at their convenient time.

7. Cheaper in preparing the message: - Most e-mail users accept less well-formatted messages and slight
typing errors are overlooked, unlike in business letters which are expected to be error-free and formatted
according to certain standards
DISADVANTAGES

1. Spam - flooding one's inbox with irrelevant emails.

2. Initial setup/installation cost is high – requires email server, protocols and email software.

3. Messages may not be kept for future reference due to high cost of storage

4. Privacy can be compromised if the email service is hacked.

5. Computer viruses can be easily transmitted through emails thus compromising one's computer.

6. Requires a computer with an internet connection.

Factors affecting the growth internet access in Kenya

i) Cost: - for effective use of internet, a powerful & costly computer is

needed. The cost of installing internet services, telephone bills is also high hence
discouraging internet growth.
ii) Illiteracy: - Many people are computer illiterate and therefore have no idea
of computer internet services.
iii) Inadequate infrastructure: - Lack of infrastructures such as telephone
services in rural areas also hinders growth of internet access. Lack of electricity
discourages people from installing internets in their offices.
iv) Lack of awareness of the existence of such services by the public

Activities:

Browsing - Use the internet to access information on emerging issues

Using email