Slanted View of Internet History. It is so easy to get a slanted view of history. A question came up about how the internet got started. My immediate thought was that it came into existence as a counter-measure to assure military communications in the event of a nuclear attack. My involvement in the internet started in the mid-80s when there were just thousands on the internet, not hundreds of millions. My first internet project was funded by DARPA and the U.S. Army. We were testing the ability for military fighting vehicle simulators to interact over the internet between the United States and Europe. I would think that I would have a correct view of the history of the internet with my early involvement in the internet and the military.
Birth of Internet – Economics or Nuclear Protection? |
Urban Legend of Internet Origins Dispelled. Well, I am wrong and have perpetuated an urban legend. Yes, the internet was partially funded by the Department of Defense, but the internet’s real roots are more based on economic reasons. An article by Johna Till Johnson called, Net was born of economic necessity, not fear, brings me back to reality that it was simple economics that really made the internet what it is today. The article tells us that it was economics that drove the the design and creation of the internet as we know it today. Johnson tells us:
“But the actual architecture and creation of the ‘Net was handled … by a team of researchers headed by Larry Roberts. Their goal was more modest: to effectively share computing resources among multiple organizations (including universities and government contractors). Roberts & Co. considered, but ultimately rejected, a centralized design for traffic management – not out of resilience concerns, but because nobody was willing to dedicate scarce and expensive computing resources to the problem of centrally managing and controlling traffic. Computer owners were, however, willing to spare a small fraction of their computational resources to route traffic in a distributed fashion – so Roberts opted to go with a Baran-like distributed design.”
The Economics of the Internet. She is right. We had this new internet technology to allow computers to share data over vast geographic distances. Large computer mainframes could act as hosts to inter-connect all these computers, but no one wanted to foot the bill for the mainframe. Thus, the internet was born where everyone dedicated a “small fraction of their computational resources to route traffic in a distributed fashion.” I still think that there is some truth to the fact that the internet was partially funded to assure military communications in the event of nuclear war, but the real driver of the internet was, and is economics.
