History of the Internet

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COMP1260 > Understanding the Internet



Introduction

Have you ever wondered, "How did the Internet start?" Well, in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first satellite was launched into space. The USSR could (theoretically) launch bombs into space and drop them anywhere on earth. The US military was concerned with the effect of a nuclear blast on their communications networks, for if they couldn't communicate, they couldn't launch a counter-attack. This led the US government to create the (Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). It would later be renamed to DARPA). DARPA's work included creating ARPANET, later known as the first Internet.[1]

Plaque listing pioneers of the Internet.[2]

 

...by students

The Internet has become a great tool for university studies. No longer are students required to stay long hours in the library researching documents for a paper. With the advent of the Internet, students can now browse millions of online documents from the comfort of their own home (especially with Google Scholar). This has become a great source of knowledge for myself for use in a few of my courses. I am also assured that it will certainly be of use in my COMP 4520 Honours Project dealing with the analysis of hybrid programming algorithms.

DARPA and the IPTO

Created in 1958, "DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). DARPA's mission is to maintain the technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprises from threatening our national security."[3] DARPA's task was to create a robust, fault-tolerant, distributed network to connect the DoD's main computers.[4] To do this, DARPA created a subdivision, the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) in 1962. The IPTO focused on comprehending the world in areas ranging from sensing to cognition.

In order to develop ARPANET quickly, the government gave DARPA the authorization and direction to make quantum jumps in technology using any means they believed appropriate. For example, DARPA performed research before it was peer-reviewed (to avoid errors) because this review process hindered progress.[5] This radical approach enabled DARPA and IPTO's to build off of the SAGE network to create the world's first wide area packet switching network, ARPANET, in only seven years. ARPANET became the survivable electronic network to interconnect key US sites including the Pentagon and Cheyenne Mountain. Thus, the Internet was born.

Once ARPANET was created, DARPA continued their research to create both the NSFNET and the Internet as we know it today.[6]


ARPANET - Advanced Research Projects Agency Network

The logical map of ARPANET listing all connections as of March, 1977.[7]

ARPANET was originally created by IPTO for the United States DoD during the cold war. ARPANET's breakthrough was communicating via a network control protocol (NCP). Before ARPANET, data communication was done by circuit switching, like old telephone circuits. The first data exchange over ARPANET occurred between UCLA and Stanford Research Institute on the October 29, 1969[8]. Though the command options were limited and the network was unreliable, ARPANET proved to be a smashing success. Commands: Log into a remote computer, print to a remote printer, and transfer files between computers[9] Failure: UCLA's first attempt to log into Stanford's computer by typing "log win" crashed their computer when they typed the letter 'g'.[10]

Please see the linked YouTube video in the "Further Readings" section if you would like to hear UCLA's Leonard Kleinrock talk about the Internet's first router.


Milestones

1971 - Email is first developed by Ray Tomlinson. Tomlinson also made the decision to use the "@" symbol to separate the user name from the computer name.[11]
1972 - Telnet, a remote connection service for controlling a computer is created.[12]
1973 - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) allows information to be sent from one computer to another in bulk.[13]
1974 - TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is outlined. As ARPANETexpanded, different models of computers were connected, creating compatibility problems. The solution was a better set of protocols called TCP/IP, designed in 1982.[14][15]
1978 - Spam is born.[16]
1980 - hypertext (hyperlinks) are used in the ENQUIRE software (created by Tim Berners-Lee) for The European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN) allowing scientists at the particle physics lab to keep track of people, software, and projects using hyperlinks.[17]
1982 - The first emoticon. While many people credit Kevin MacKenzie with the invention of the emoticon in 1979, it was Scott Fahlman in 1982 who proposed using :-) after a joke, rather than the original -) proposed by MacKenzie.[18]
1984 - Domain Name System (DNS) is created. DNS was important in that it permitted users to type in an easy-to-remember domain name and which would then be converted to an IP address automatically.
1988 - Internet Relay Chat is first deployed, paving the way for real-time chat and the instant messaging programs of today.[19]
1988 - First major malicious internet-based attack. Written by Robert Morris, "The Morris Worm" caused major interruptions across large parts of the Internet.[20]
1990 - ARPANET is shut down.[21]
1991 - The first web page is created with the purpose of explaining "What is the World Wide Web?"[22]
1991 - Gopher, the first search engine that examined file contents instead of just file names is launched.[23]
1993 - The first graphical web browser for the general public is unveiled, Mosaic.[24]
1998 - Google is launched.[25]
1998 - Internet-based file-sharing starts with the release of Napster.[26]
2001 - Wikipedia is launched paving the way for collective web content generation/social media.[27]
2005 - YouTube allows streaming video for the masses.[28]


Further Readings

DARPA - check here for more information about the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
IPTO - click here to learn more about the Information Processing Techniques Office


UCLA's Leonard Kleinrock Displays the Internet's First Router. [29]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU9oMOcRsuE















References

  1. ↑ http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii.htm
  2. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birth_of_the_Internet.jpg
  3. ↑ http://www.darpa.mil/#learn
  4. ↑ http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_darpa.htm
  6. ↑ http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_darpa.htm
  7. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arpnet-map-march-1977.png
  8. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  9. ↑ http://smithsonian.yahoo.com/arpanet2.html
  10. ↑ http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm
  11. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  12. ↑ http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm
  13. ↑ http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm
  14. ↑ http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm
  15. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  16. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  17. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  18. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  19. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell
  20. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  21. ↑ http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm
  22. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  23. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  24. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  25. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  26. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  27. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  28. ↑ http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/
  29. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU9oMOcRsuE

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