Control, Change and the Internet

Patrick Maslen (patrick@quest-bird.com)

Glossary of Terms

AARNET
Australian Academic and Research Network
APC
Association for Progressive Communications, an international non-governmental organisation of computer networks, including PeaceNet
ARPA
Advanced Research Project Agency. Changed into DARPA in late 1970s
ARPANET
Advanced Research Project Agency Network
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange
AT&T
American Telephone & Telegraph, a U.S. corporation which held a monopoly on the United States telephone system until 1983.
Backbone
A set of nodes in a network which are extremely fast and reliable
Backbone Cabal
A group of system administrators on USENET who effectively controlled the network in the early 1980s
BITNET
Because It's Time Network, originally based in New York
CIX
Commercial Internet eXchange, a group of linked commercial Internet backbones
CYCLADES
French packet-switched network of the 1970s
DARPA
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, originally ARPA
DoD
- United States Department of Defense
FidoNet
A network of linked PC bulletin board systems.
Host
A computer connected to a network
IBM
International Business Machines, U. S. transnational corporation
Internet
A network which uses Internet Protocol to connect other networks
INWG
InterNetwork Working Group
IP
Internet Protocol
ISO
International Standards Organisation
ISOC
The Internet Society, a non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting and promoting the Internet.
ITT
International Telephone and Telegraph, U. S. transnational corporation
JUNET
Japanese UNIX Network
LAN
Local Area Network
MCI
U.S. transnational corporation
NCP
- Network Control Protocol, used on the ARPANET before TCP/IP
Netiquette
"Net-etiquette", a set of social rules evolved by netizens to cope with the Internet's lack of hierarchy.
Netizen
"Net-citizen", a participant in network culture.
NGO
Non-Governmental Organisation
Node
A computer on a network. Similar to Host.
NSFNET
National Science Foundation Network, an Internet backbone established in 1986.
OSI
Open Systems Interconnection, a European protocol developed by the International Standards Organisation. Internetworking rival to TCP/IP during the Protocol Wars.
Packet-switched Network
A network which breaks messages into packets and sends each packet individually to its destination, where the packets are re-assembled.
Protocol Wars
Period of international rivalry over computer networking protocols TCP/IP and OSI (c. 1980-1994)
RAND
United States research and development corporation. Invented packet-switching concept in 1962.
RCA
U.S. transnational corporation
TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol
TNC
TransNational Corporation
UNIX
Popular computer operating system developed by AT&T in the 1970s and used by most U.S. universities. Rewritten to include TCP/IP in the 1980s.
USENET
Users' Network, devoted to the carriage of network news and discussion groups.
UUCP
UNIX-UNIX Copy Protocol. A networking protocol which allows UNIX-based machines to exchange information.

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