The Internet has the potential to change society completely within the next few years. It is such an important new advance that we must understand at least the basic structures and tools it provides. In this unit, we expanded upon the ideas we learned about the world wide web, and investigated some of the other protocols that the Internet provides.

We examined how the Internet is organized, how the DNS system works, and how computers and individual users get names. We also talked about levels of connectivity to the Internet, and finally we looked more carefully at email, mailing lists, and newsgroups.

The Internet is no doubt a toolbox of major proportions. If we understand how it works and where it is going, we should be able to learn the new tools it provides us with relative ease.

Internet tools are about communication, and communication is central to the human condition. Perhaps some of the tools we learned about in this section can be used to help people communicate with each other.