A Half Century of Internet: How it works today

The Internet connects more than half of the world's population. This revolutionary form of transmitting all kinds of data between places on the planet has made the network of networks the indispensable backbone of societies. The number of users has exploded to four billion people.

The speed of change is dramatic and for some breathtaking. Many well-known and even more unknown personalities have shaped the development of the Internet. However, this exciting success story also reveals the dark sides of this development. What has become of the original hope for a democratization of communication? To what extent has the Internet provided access to better educational opportunities? How do large Internet companies and governments use the Internet? How can you safely communicate over this network?

Why you should attend this course

At the end of this course, you will better understand the following contents:

What the technical construction principle of the Internet looks like in its main features
How data is transferred from one computer to another
How data packets find their way through the interconnected individual networks of the Internet
How mobile devices, sensors and machines communicate with each other via the Internet
Which applications ensure that you can surf the World Wide Web and send or receive e-mails or films
That security on the Internet - not considered a design feature from the outset - must be protected against possible attacks.

You will also be able to evaluate:

What have so far been the key personalities and milestones in the development of the Internet so far
Which developments have been successful or unsuccessful in the Internet's 50 year old history
The important role the Internet has taken on in the economy, society, and politics
How the Internet is being misused for criminal purposes and how to protect yourself against it
Which development the Internet is likely to take in the future.

Workload and Certification

Depending on your previous knowledge, you should plan 3-6 hours per week for course participation. This estimated time includes the study of materials and self-tests provided. In addition, each week a graded homework assignment with a 60-minute time limit is scheduled. The workload of this course corresponds to 2 ECTS points. All successful course participants will receive their record of achievement or qualified certificate about one week after the end of the course.

Social Media

Follow us on Twitter: @openHPI. For tweets about this course please use the hashtag #internetworking2020

Visit us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OpenHPI

You can find more video lectures at www.tele-task.de.

Attention: This course is currently in self-study mode, in which you do not have access to graded assignments/exams. Therefore, we can only issue you a certificate of participation.

Our teachers

Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel

Christoph Meinel (Univ.-Prof., Dr.rer.nat., Dr.sc.nat., 1954) was Managing and Scientific Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH (HPI) until March 2023. He is a full professor (C4) for Informatics at the university of Potsdam and has the chair for "Internet Technology and Systems" at the HPI. From 2017 to 2021 he was the founding dean of the Digital Engineering Faculty of the University of Potsdam. Now he is president of the German University of Digital Science, the first digital university in Germany.
His research interests are broadly diversified in the area of innovative Internet applications and systems, especially in digital education, e-learning & tele-teaching, artifical intelligence and deep learing, and Internet and information security. He is also active in the field of innovation research and investigates the Stanford innovation method design thinking. Former research interest were in telemedicine, as well as in the theoretical foundations of computer science in the areas of complexity theory and efficient OBDD-based algorithms and data structures.