Internet History Technology and Security
Coursera
Course Summary
What is the Internet? How was it created? How does it work? How do we secure communications on the Internet?
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Course Description
The impact of technology and networks on our lives, culture, and society continues to increase. The very fact that you can take this course from anywhere in the world requires a technological infrastructure that was designed, engineered, and built over the past sixty years. To function in an information-centric world, we need to understand the workings of network technology. This course will open up the Internet and show you how it was created, who created it and how it works. Along the way we will meet many of the innovators who developed the Internet and Web technologies that we use today.
What You Will Learn After this course you will not take the Internet and Web for granted. You will be better informed about important technological issues currently facing society. You will realize that the Internet and Web are spaces for innovation and you will get a better understanding of how you might fit into that innovation. If you get excited about the material in this course, it is a great lead-in to taking a course in Web design, Web development, programming, or even network administration. At a minimum, you will be a much wiser network citizen.
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Course Syllabus
Week 1: Introduction to the Course and The Dawn of Electronic Computing (1940-1960)
Week 2: The First Internet (1960-1990)
Week 3: The World Wide Web (1990-1995)
Week 4: Commercialization and Growth (1995-2000)
Week 5: Internets and Packets
Week 6: Transports and Security
Week 7: Networked Applications
Week 8: Security - Protecting Information
Week 9: Security - Establishing Identity
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Recommended Background
This course has no prerequisites and there will be no programming. Literally anyone can and everyone should take this course.
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Course Format
The class is a combination of video lectures from five to 20 minutes in length interspersed with interviews of Internet pioneers. The video lectures will have embedded assessments focused on helping students measure their learning. There will be a home-work-style quiz each week, also focused on helping students measure learning and explore the materials in more depth. There are several extra credit essays that are optional and there will be a final exam at the end of the course.
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Suggested Reading
All required materials will be provided in the course. Students may find the books Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet by Katie Hafner, Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee, and Mark Fischetti, How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web by Robert Cailliau as interesting supplemental reading to see different perspectives the history we will cover in the class. We will develop a reading list of online materials together as the class progresses.