Taiwan's Information Superhighway: Technical Issues and Social Impacts

Abstract

The advent of the Internet has been one of the most exciting major events in the second half of the 20 century. The ancient dream of “a scholar knows all things happening in the world without venturing outdoors” has finally become a reality. Since 1993, the Internet started to take off. At present, the Internet has spread to more than 180 countries and regions, connecting more than 600,000 domestic networks of various types, hooking up more than 20 million computers available to 120 million users (2% of the entire global population). Within the Internet are the information treasures shared by all human civilizations.