For most people, the Internet arrived sometime between 1993-1995, but it did
not just miraculously come into being. It is a long story of an almost accidental
evolution of a government-funded military experiment named “ARPAnet” into
today’s ubiquitous, commercial Web. Its evolution can be linked to ancient
information-processing devises such as the abacus and traveling through the
years to a series of rapid technological changes during the late nineteenth
century--such as the typewriter, punch clock, cash register, and four-function
calculators--that provided new ways of processing information. In the 1960s,
a group of “anarchist hippies” from different organizations began
realizing the potential which computer technology had for revolutionizing communication
in ways that had not happened since the invention of the printing press over
500 years ago.
The ARPAnet
Worried that the U.S.
was falling behind in terms of scientific achievement after the Soviet Union
launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved
the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). ARPA had as
its state mission to keep the U.S. ahead of military rivals by pushing research
projects that promised significant advances in defense-related fields. ARPA
had several project offices that funded research in different areas depending
on the changing priorities of the Department of Defense (Burman 2003). One
of these divisions, the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) headed
by J.C.R Licklider of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) became a major funder
of computer science in the United States and the driving force behind research
into areas such as graphics, artificial intelligence, and networking.
One
of Licklider’s visions was to create an “intergalactic network” of
computers and people. His influential 1960 paper “Man-Computing Symbiosis” was
a revolutionary conceptual shift because it cast computers not as number-crunching
machines but as an exciting new communication medium. After Licklider left
ARPA for MIT, his successor, Robert Taylor, remained committed to Licklider’s “intergalactic
network” because it allowed ARPA researchers from around the country
to access various computers in different locations (Abbate 1999).
Laying
the Foundation of the Internet
Paul Baran of the United
States Air Force-backed Research and Development organization (RAND)
would help Lickliders’ dream become a reality by creating what
would become the foundation for the Internet. In 1962, Baran was
commissioned by the Air Force to research a decentralized, survivable
way to maintain control over its missiles in the case of a nuclear
attack. Baran’s final proposal was what was called
a “packet-switched network.”
Unlike the traditional
network system which channeled information through one source to
be processed and then routed somewhere else, packet switching essentially
split large sections of data into little sections called “packets” that
could be sent through different routes which all led to the same
place. Upon arrival, information would be reassembled (Segaller
1998). Packet switching allowed dynamic rerouting--in other words,
information could to be routed and rerouted quickly to any computer.
Baran
talked to Robert Taylor of ARPRA who pushed the project forward
by awarding what was called the “ARPAnet” contract
to BBN. The team at BBN proposed that this network be composed
of what was called Interface Message Processors (IMPs), or routers
that were connected with modems that would process data packets.
BBN chose Honeywell’s DDP-516 to build the first IMP and,
in 1969, the very first rudimentary peer-to-peer network was
established when BBN installed the first IMP at UCLA and succeeded
in transmitting the “l” and the “o” in
the word “login” to Stanford before the system crashed. Hence,
the first message on the Internet was “lo” An hour
later, they were successful in transmitting the full “login.”
Later
that year, four major computers at major universities (UCLA,
University of Utah, Stanford Research Institute, and UCSB)
joined the network, with other universities soon following
(Burman 2003). As the network grew, however, ARPAnet managers
realized that the original system supported only client-server
applications like Telnet and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and
couldn’t handle host-to-host connections. These limitations
were overcome with the NCP, or Network Control Program, which
allowed communications between different hosts running on the
same network.
Becoming an ARPAnet user, however, was
difficult. The first challenge for any potential user was
getting access to the network. For a site to get an ARPAnet
connection, someone would have to have a research contract
with ARPA or had to pay the cost of setting up their node
which, in 1972, might run anywhere between $55,000 and $107,000.
When a site was approved, ARPA had to order a new IMP from
Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, reconfigure the network to include
the new node, and arrange with AT&T for a telephone link
between the new node and the rest of the ARPAnet. Once a
site was connected to ARPAnet, though, access to its controls
was much looser (Abbate 1999). In theory, access within each
site was to be limited to individuals doing work for ARPA,
though few sites actually enforced that policy.
Many
members of ARPAnet suspected that ARPA managers were aware
that unsanctioned users were on the network and did not
object. Unauthorized users who contributed improvements
to the system were even tacitly encouraged. In fact, “science
fiction lovers” mailing lists were apparently allowed
to operate over ARPAnet provided they generated enough
traffic to allow ARPA managers to observe the network’s
behavior under the load. Another unofficial but tolerated
activity was Michael Hart’s Project Gutenberg, which
made an effort to make historically significant documents
available over the network. Hart was not an ARPA researcher
but had acquired an account at the University of Illinois
and began by posting the Declaration of Independence on
his site’s computer in December of 1971. Project
Gutenberg is still in operation on the Internet to this
day (Abbate 1999).
Once on the network, users had
access to some of the most advanced computer systems
in the U.S., but using it was difficult or unappealing,
and new sites were given little direction on how to get
started. In addition, navigating what was available on
the ARPAnet was difficult because the network search
tools that Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) users would
later take for granted did not exist. ARPAnet, however,
would change forever with the creation of “net
notes” (later “email”) created by Ray
Tomlinson. Email quickly became the network's most popular
and influential service, surpassing all expectations.
Email was not included in the original blueprint for
the network, and its success represented a radical shift
in the ARPAnet’s identity and purpose. The network
was originally built to provide access to computers rather
than to people, but email and emailing created a deeper
level of community among ARPAnet users (Murphy 2002).
In
1972, ARPAnet was successfully demonstrated to the
International Conference on Computer Communications
in Washington in the presence of AT&T and other
international telephone companies. In July, 1974, the
ARPAnet was transferred to the Defense Communication
Agency as an operational network where it continued
to perfect protocols and expand the ARPAnet to function
internationally by satellite links. Over the course
of the decade, the ARPAnet, which was a single network
that connected a few dozen sites, would be transformed
into the Internet, which was a system of many interconnected
networks, capable of almost indefinite expansion (Burman
2003).
Designing the Internet
NCP,
the first standard networking protocol of ARPA (now
called DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency),
was rapidly becoming unable to accommodate growing
network traffic. Vinton (“Vint”) Cerf and
Robert Kahn created the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol (TCP/IP) in the mid-1970s, which added flexibility
and sophistication to the network. In fact, the move
from NCP to TCP/IP is considered by many people as
the beginning of the Internet (the first use of the
word “Internet” was in a 1974 paper by
Cerf and Kahn on Transmission Control Protocol). TCP
did more than just set up a connection between two
hosts--it also controlled the rate of data flow between
the hosts, compensated for errors by retransmitting
lost or damaged packets, and verified the safe arrival
of packets using acknowledgments (Segaller 1998).
Cerf
and Kahn planned for TCP to replace NCP as the ARPANET’s
host protocol and be the standard host protocol in
every subsequent network built by ARPA. They also
proposed splitting the TCP protocol into two separate
parts: a host-to-host protocol and an internetwork
protocol (IP), which would become known as TCP/IP.
IP would pass individual packets between machines
and TCP would be responsible for ordering these packets
into reliable connections between pairs of hosts.
In
March 1981, Major Joseph Haughney announced that
all ARPAnet hosts would be required to implement
TCP/IP in place of NCP by January of 1983. The
replacement became a major ordeal and Dan Lynch,
a computer systems manager, made up buttons that
read “I Survived the TCP Transition.” After
converting ARPAnet to TCP/IP, DARPA created a separate
MILnet site equipped with encryption devices and
other security measures to support their military
functions while ARPAnet would continue to host
civilian academic researchers. ARPAnet’s
military roots would continue to be downplayed
and, in 1987, the supervision of the Internet was
transferred from the Department of Defense to the
National Science Foundation (NSF) (Abbate 1999).
Launching
the Internet
As the Internet
grew, its backbone network, ARPAnet, was
unable to keep up. ARPAnet managers and the
NSF agreed to connect the ARPAnet sites to
the NSF’s regional networks and have
the NSFnet take over as the backbone of the
Internet. NSFnet had higher-speed lines and
faster switches, and it could handle more
traffic. Since the NSF and DARPA were already
operating their network services jointly,
the merger would be relatively painless.
During 1988 and 1989, various DARPA sites
transferred their host connections from ARPAnet
to NSFnet. On 28 February 1990, ARPAnet was
formally decommissioned, the remaining hardware
dismantled, and military operation of the
Internet came to a close. Soon after the
completion of NSFnet’s new and faster
T1 lines, Internet traffic increased rapidly,
and its T1 lines are usually considered the
tool which opened the Internet to the world
(Burman 2003).
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee
at the European Organization for Nuclear
Research (CERN) developed the next phase
of the development of the Internet, the
vocabulary of the World Wide Web, while
the debut of the first browser, Mosaic
(whose developers founded Netscape), provided
easy access to information dispersed through
servers all over the world by means of
the Web’s hyperlinks. By 1995, the
Internet had grown into a new communications
paradigm. It had started as a network offering
file sharing, remote login, and resource
sharing for a small group of scientists
and had evolved into a global network accessible
by anyone who had an ordinary telephone
and a personal computer (Murphy 2002).
In
1995, the NSF privatized the Internet
and contracted with several companies
to carry most of its traffic. Today these
companies, or Internet Service Providers
(ISPs), include Verizon, AT&T, Qwest,
and IBM. There are also smaller ISPs
such as cable and DSL companies. Within
these backbones are IXPs, or Internet
Exchange Points, that allow networks
to exchange data. For example, while
Verizon and Sprint provide a part of
the Internet’s backbone, they aren’t
connected--they need an IXP to connect.
Currently,
there are several organizations that
oversee the Internet’s protocols
and infrastructure to ensure that information
from one computer to the next can be
can be understood. These organizations
include The Internet Society, The Internet
Engineering Task Force, and the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (Burman 2003). But while the
framework of the Internet is carefully
designed and cared for, the content
continues to be extremely democratic
and free.
Future of the
Internet
The Internet’s
democratic nature has made it
seen as needing careful regulation
in countries such as China and
India. However, as one scholar
argues, the seemingly boundless
freedom of the Internet is not
guaranteed. Some scholars argue
that the generative power of
the Internet could be on a path
to lockdown by Internet-entered
products such as iPods, iPhones,
Tivos which can’t be easily
modified by anyone except vendors.
Instead of using personal computers
which can run any program from
any source without approval from
a third party, we are entering
a world where centralized approval
becomes necessary. These scholars
continue to assert that the Internet
needs to remain “Wikipedia-ean” in
which there are no clear boundaries
between users and creators. If
the Internet is to continue as
an innovative means of collaboration,
it will need to preserve its
legacy of adaptability and its
democratic nature (Declan 2007).
Whatever
its future holds, the Internet
sits at the center of virtually
all media crossroads.
