Heyar Brian writes the "Computing Science" column for American Scientist, the bimonthly magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. In years past, he has written similar columns for Scientific American, for Computer Language and for The Sciences. He has also been an editor of sci...

Internet, its effects in our lives and the future of the Internet: The Internet is, quite literally, a network of networks. It is comprised of ten thousands of interconnected networks spanning the globe. The computers that form the Internet range from huge mainframes in research establishments to...