It is ubiquitous.
It shifted our world in more ways than we ever could have imagined. Increased the speed of sharing and accessing information, making connections, collecting data, testing boundaries of privacy, policy, cultural norms and rights and freedoms in ways we never could have imagined.
We are surrounded by it, consumed by it, and in many cases ruled by it. The subject of Hollywood movies and societal nightmares, presenting opportunities and threats to our very morals and ethics.
The Internet has evolved significantly over the last 30 years! From initially linking government departments, academic institutions and research organizations, there are now nearly 4.6 BILLION Internet users in the world, surfing over 1 billion websites and sending nearly 3 million emails *every second*.
A Wide Area Network (WAN) is a network that covers a large geographical area, and typically connects multiple LANs. A WAN has a large capacity and typically combines multiple channels (e.g. fibre-optic cables, microwave and satellite). A WAN also contains routers. A router is a communications processor that routes messages from a LAN to the Internet, across several connected LANs, or across a wide area network. The Internet is the world's largest WAN.
Networks can be public or private. A Virtual Private Network allows users to utilize a third-party IP address while surfing the Internet, and is often used for enhanced privacy.
Many organizations implement an interconnected network that does not extend beyond the organization that created it, also known as an Intranet. An Extranet is where an Intranet is extended to include entities outside the boundaries of an organization and is often used to connect companies with suppliers, business partners, or other authorized users.
Your home network is similar to a company or work network. Your home is hardwired via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to a backbone node of the Internet. You should be able to find this point of connection via a cable coming into your house. If you are wired via a dial-up or analog connection, you will have a modem that converts signals from digital to analog to send over the telephone line. A wireless access point connects the wireless devices to your LAN, whereas a Hub (or Switch) connects wired devices (such as printers, computers, scanners, etc.) to your LAN.
The World Wide Web refers to that information sharing model built ON the Internet. The World Wide Web is that system of shared standards including Hypertext markup language and hypertext transfer protocols that link web pages and web sites together, and is accessed via a web browser.
Learn more about the World Wide Web at The World Wide Web Consortium (W3).