THE INTERNET. The Internet, a global computer network which embraces millions of users all over the world, began in the United States in 1969 as a mil­itary experiment

The Internet, a global computer network which embraces millions of users all over the world, began in the United States in 1969 as a mil­itary experiment. It was designed to survive a nuclear war. Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest path available from one com­puter to another. Because of this, any two computers on the Internet will be able to stay in touch with each other as long as there is a single route between them. This technology is called packet swithing. Owing to this technology, if some computers on the network are knocked out (by a nuclear explosion, for example), information will just route around them. One such packet-swithing network already survived a war. It was the Iraqi computer network which was not knocked out dur­ing the Gulf War.

Most of the Internet host computers (more than 50 %) are in the United States, while the rest are located in more than 100 other coun­tries. Although the number of host computers can be counted fairly accurately, nobody knows exactly how many people use the Internet, there are millions, and their number is growing by thousands each month worldwide.

The most popular Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people, who have access to the Internet, use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail messages. However, other popular services are avail­able on the Internet: reading USENET News, using the World-Wide Web, telnet, FTP, and Gopher.

In many developing countries the Internet may provide business­men with a reliable alternative to the expensive and unreliable telecom­munications systems of these countries. Commercial users can com­municate over the Internet with the rest of the world and can do it very cheaply. When they send e-mail messages, they only have to pay for phone calls to their local service providers, not for calls across their countries or around the world. But who actually pays for sending e-mail messages over the Internet long distances, around the world? The answer is very simple: an user pays his/her service provider a monthly or hourly fee. Part of this fee goes towards its costs to connect to a larg­er service provider. And part of the fee got by the larger provider goes to cover its cost of running a worldwide network of wires and wireless stations.

But saving money is only the first step. If people see that they can make money from the Internet, commercial use of this network will drastically increase. For example, some western architecture compa­nies and garment centers already transmit their basic designs and con­cepts over the Internet into China, where they are reworked and refined by skilled — but inexpensive — Chinese computer-aided-design spe­cialists.

However, some problems remain. The most important is security. When you send an e-mail message to somebody, this message can travel through many different networks and computers. The data is constantly being directed towards its destination by special comput­ers called routers. Because of this, it is possible to get into any of computers along the route, intercept and even change the data being sent over the Internet. In spite of the fact that there are many strong encoding programs available, nearly all the information being sent over the Internet is transmitted without any form of encoding, i.e. " in the clear". But when it becomes neces­sary to send important information over the network, these encoding programs may be useful. Some American banks and companies even conduct transactions over the Internet. However, there are still both commercial and technical problems which will take time to be resolved.

THE PROBLEM OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY'S NEEDS

The last three decades in the world's development have been characterized by the increasingly pressing nature of global problems that are of concern to the whole of mankind. The accelerated growth of the productive forces, the increasing physical and economic internationalization of the modern world combined with the global scale of world political processes have gen­erated a whole set of organically inter­twined global factors which are increasingly affecting the shaping of mankind's future.

A place of prominence among these global problems belongs to preservation of the natural environment on our planet and ensuring the national use of its resources, which has for the first time in history come to be an objective reality.

Several decades ago the Russian scientist V.I.Vernadsky wrote: «In the twentieth century, for the first time in the history of the Earth, Man has learned about, and extended his activities to, the whole of the biosphere; he has completed the Earth's geographical map and has settled throughout the length and breadth of the globe. In its way of life, mankind has become a single whole».

Scientific and technological process has equipped mankind with a previously unheard-of powerful means of harnessing and utilising the forces of nature. The in­creasing scale of society's impact on the environment has, however, created a dan­ger of polluting and destroying it.

The present ecological conflict threat­ens to deplete the non-renewable resources of nature and to pollute the biosphere. This is why the further development of the productive forces will make it increas­ingly imperative to work out special meas­ures to reduce the rapid build-up of the pressure on the environment on the part of economic system.

The global industrialisation of eco­nomic activity, the growing population of the globe, the unprecedented concentra­tion of the means of production and peo­ple in the major cities, etc. carry the threat of increasing pressure on the envi­ronment and on the totality of the natural resources. The resulting ecological conflict i$ now becoming a recognized factor in the economic and social development of society. Its consequences are literally be­ing felt in all the links and levels of na­tional economies.

The present ecological conflict threat­ens to deplete the non-renewable resources of nature and to pollute the biosphere. This is why the further development of the productive forces will be making it in­creasingly imperative to work out meas­ures to reduce the rapid build-up of the pressure on the environment on the part of economic systems.

Ответьте на вопросы по тексту:

1. What is the Internet?

2. What was the Internet originally designed for?

3. What country are most of the Internet host computers in?

4. What is the most popular Internet service?

5. Whom do you have to pay for sending e-mail messages?

6.What created a dan­ger of polluting and destroying the environment?

7.What carries the threat of increasing pressure on the envi­ronment and on the totality of the natural resources?

Вариант 2