History of the Internet

the internet as a self-organizing system, as the last frontier

anything can be put on the internet, so you have to evaluate the information for yourself
you don't have to publish, be recorded--anyone can share their ideas and music
is there some information that shouldn't be available?
if music, etc. is freely distributed, how will artists make money?
what kinds of communities does the internet create?
can/should the internet be regulated?
is the purpose of the internet the sharing of ideas or is the purpose selling stuff?
how does it change knowledge, social interaction, commerce?

ARPANET:

in the late 1960s the development of packet-switching networks make it much easier to send data between computers by telephone line
developed in a number of countries; in the US particularly for for the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Dept of Defense in 1969. By 1971 this system had 15 nodes, by 1972 37 nodes
It was intended originally for remote computing, but e-mail quickly caught on among those with access, not only because of its speed but also because of its informality.
ARPANET was very important in the development of the Net.

In its time it was the largest, fastest, and most populated part of the Net.
Its initial structure was influenced by the fact that it was intended to form part of the central command and control structure for the US armed forces during the height of the Cold War . As such, it was designed to be able to survive a nuclear attack.
This in turn influenced the decentralized and peer-to-peer structure of the Net. ( Hardy, History of the Net ).
it was designed specifically to avoid central control, so any part that survived could continue to function

The Internet:

in 1972 a conference drew up standards for connecting networks such as ARPANET, the beginning idea of the internet
in 1977 TheoryNet linked 100 computer science researchers, leading to plans for to create a system that could link all computer scientists. When NSF was brought in for funding the decision was made to make the system available without charge and gateway it to ARPANET, it opened in 1979
in 1979 USENET began--a system where many computers served as hosts storing a series of documents.

In 1986 this had grown so popular that there was great controversy over a more organized naming system ("The Great Renaming")
Originally there was a centralized backbone system, but when that backbone refused to carry a new group called rec.sex alternate routes were devised called alt. The backbone administrators gave up and ever since usenet has been proud of its anarchy.
as of 1994 there were over 10,000 groups
you can read usenet via Google Groups, though if you get serious about it you should get a newsreader

two years after USENET was created BITNET was established to provide e-mail discussion lists.

These had a more conservative culture and generally banned flaming, which was seen as an art form on USENET and in fact served as the main form of regulation.
This kind of forum moved onto the internet with the development of Listserv software; as of 1997 there were more than 70,000 different mailing lists.

in 1983 MillNet was separated from ARPANET and military control was relaxed on the ARPANET part. But it didn't have central control
in 1984 the installation of a name server meant that you no longer had to specify the path to another user
in 1986 NSF Net encourages connection among universities and reduced the attempts at central control that had been exercised by ARPANET (which was abolished in 1989). Provided a faster backbone.

number of internet hosts (source Hobbes Internet Timeline ):

1982	1984	1986	1988	1990	1992	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004
235	1,024	5,089	56,000	313,000	1,136,000	3,864,000	16,729,000	36,739,000	93,047,785	162,128,493	285,139,107

in 1989 Compuserv was linked to the internet: first link by a commercial mail carrier
in 1991 Gopher was created by the Univ. of Michigan to provide access to mass information--an interesting example of an innovation that failed
in 1995 dial-up services began routinely providing connection to the internet
how long can you keep growing at a doubling time of less about 18 months?

the idea of hypertext --of documents with live links--dates back to the 1960s, first on mainframes. Enthusiasts got very interested in how knowledge might be communicated more effectively with interlinked documents.
Tim Berners-Lee and other researchers at CERN--a central European particle physics laboratory--developed an internet hypertext system in the early 1980s
in 1993 Mosaic is introduced--an easy to install browser which allows color images, and the WWW launches immediately into explosive growth
by 1994 the WWW was the second most-popular service on the internet (after FTP) , by 1995 the most popular
Internet communities developed for all sorts of special interests
information just wants to be free

number of web sites:

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

623

10,022

23,500

603,367

1,681,868

3,689,227

9,560,866

25,675,581

36,276,252

35,543,105

45,980,112

56,923,737

source: Hobbes Internet Timeline

Internet commerce:

is the internet a way of showing off pictures of your children, a way for people with common interests to talk to teach other, or a revolutionary new way of doing business?
the pornography industry pioneered selling things over the internet
Amazon.com started selling books over the internet in July 1995 and was the first internet-based business to get noticed
by 1998 most mail order catalogs had web sites where people could order products and most big businesses had informational sites
internet users have been very resistant to paying to use web sites
can you make money by offering content for free and carrying advertising?
a lot of people were betting on it and so the stock prices of internet firms went high, though few internet businesses were making money. This led to a crash .
would you buy groceries over the internet? Why and where E-business was succeeding .
Will the internet give the little guy a chance? The web as a place for people to express themselves is coming back again with weblogs .
are we loosing our privacy ?

Internet community