The emergence of computer network is a direct result of the development of modern information technology and an inevitable requirement of social informatization. At the end of the 1960s, with the rapid development of information technology, especially computer technology, and its more and more extensive application in various fields of society, the requirements of connecting various discrete computer systems to give play to their overall effectiveness and realize information resource sharing were put forward. As always, this requirement is more urgent in the field of national defense. In 1969, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense to conduct research on the establishment of computer networks in order to ensure the normal operation of the country's important computer systems in the event of a nuclear attack, which eventually led to the establishment of the world's first computer network, the Arpanet. By the late 1970s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Ministry of Defense had established several computer LANs and put them into operation. The establishment of these LANs has played a positive role in improving the efficiency, security and reliability of each computer system in the network, but the communication between networks has become a very difficult problem. In order to solve this problem, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Ministry of Defense began to study a new method of connecting different LANs to form a WAN, and built a wide area computer Internet, which is the predecessor of the Internet we are currently using widely. Although the Internet has been greatly developed in the 1980s, its application scope is still very limited. Since the 1990s, the Internet has expanded rapidly in the world and has developed into a global Internet with great influence.
With the rapid development of information technology with computer technology as the core, computer network has begun to radiate to all corners of the earth, and its tentacles extend to all areas of society. According to relevant information, the Internet, the world's largest Internet network, has been connected with tens of millions of computers, becoming a veritable international information network. It has connected the computer networks of more than 170 countries and regions in the world, with tens of millions of users. In 1997, in the United States alone, there were about 61 r5 million people online; At the beginning of 1998, there were more than 100 million Internet users worldwide. By using the Internet, users can successfully receive and send information and query information. It has been widely used in medical treatment, transportation, finance, trade, military and other fields. Users are still expanding at a rate of 10-15% per month. It is estimated that the number of online users will reach 1 billion in O/I:. At the turn of the century, the Internet has become the focus of attention of all countries. The national, regional and even global information infrastructure that countries are stepping up to build will eventually be built into a global information network that enables countries and even individuals to connect, and will fully form the so-called "computer cyberspace" that transcends traditional geospatial concepts.
On September 15, 1993, the United States issued the National Information Infrastructure: Action Plan. In fact, the "National Information Infrastructure Plan" of the United States is to establish high-speed optical fiber communication networks throughout the country. The end of this network will reach every office and family, and form an information "transportation network" that extends in all directions throughout the country, so as to realize information services that are not available or difficult to be provided by general information networks. Americans believe that the implementation of the National Information Infrastructure Plan will become a new pillar of the American economy and technology, just like the highway plan in those years, so they call it the "information highway".
After the US government put forward the plan of information highway, namely national information infrastructure, it is unwilling to lag behind the few developing countries with strong economic strength in developed countries to plan to establish a computer communication network covering their own countries from 2000 to 2010. In September 1994, the US government put forward the initiative of building a global information infrastructure, that is, to connect the information superhighways of various countries to form a global information superhighway, so as to realize information sharing among countries. Most countries in the world recognize that, although there are obvious differences in economic foundation, scientific and technological level and social development level among countries, in the new era when information technology has developed into computer networking, it is the trend of historical development to build their own information superhighway and connect it into a global information superhighway. Facing the development trend of the global information superhighway, although countries will encounter a series of new problems in the process of managing economic and social life, international relations will also be affected, and both developed and developing countries will face serious challenges. However, the establishment of the global information superhighway will help strengthen international economic, scientific, technological and educational cooperation, promote cultural exchanges, speed up the development of society to a higher stage, and provide a rare opportunity for countries to improve their comprehensive national strength.
This is a development and change with challenges and opportunities. In the future information society, computer networks will spread all over the earth, penetrate into all fields of human production and all aspects of life, and become an important support of the information society.
