Internet Censorship

14 Pages 3617 Words

work. The "Net" is frequently used in place of Internet. In the words of Allison and Baxter, two experts on Internet Censorship at the Monash University, "the Internet is comprised of various digital media subsuming many of the distinct roles of traditional media" (Allison and Baxter 3).
Electronic mail (email), which is one component of the Internet, approximates person to person letters, memoranda, notes and even phone calls. Sound and pictures are sometimes sent along with text. Email is mainly for private communication. Electronic mailing lists are rather like club newsletters and readers have to contract-in or subscribe to a list.
Another term that is often used is electronic news (enews/Usenet), enews is a broadcast, free to the Internet medium. It has some properties of radio or television, particularly talk-back radio or television, in that the destination is indiscriminate.
The term FTP is also frequently used. File transfer protocol (FTP) started as an Internet archival and retrieval medium, somewhat analogous to traditional libraries. Files can be retrieved from distant computers using a traditional text-based interface.
The world-wide web (WWW), which is another component of the Net, can be used to "publish" material that would traditionally appear in journals, magazines, posters, books, television and even on film. The term UNIX, "a widely heard computer term, is a multi-user, multitasking operating system originally developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, at AT&T Bell Laboratories, in 1969 for use on minicomputers" ("UNIX" n.p.).
To understand the background of the controversy, it is also necessary to give a brief history on the Internet. The Internet was created about twenty years ago in an attempt to connect a U.S. Defense Department network called the ARPAnet and various other radio and satellite networks. The ARPAnet was an experimental network designed to support military research; in particular, resea...