Who Really Invented the Internet?

The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 23, 2012 | L. GORDON CROVITZ

[Pharmboy]

Contrary to legend, it wasn't the federal government, and the Internet had nothing to do with maintaining communications during a war.

A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." He justified elevating bureaucrats over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet."

It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.

For many technologists, the idea of the Internet traces to Vannevar Bush, the presidential science adviser during World War II who oversaw the development of radar and the Manhattan Project....

...by the 1960s technologists were trying to connect separate physical communications networks into one global network—a "world-wide web." The federal government was involved, modestly, via the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Its goal was not maintaining communications during a nuclear attack, and it didn't build the Internet. Robert Taylor, who ran the ARPA program in the 1960s, sent an email to fellow technologists in 2004 setting the record straight: "The creation of the Arpanet was not motivated by considerations of war. The Arpanet was not an Internet. An Internet is a connection between two or more computer networks."

If the government didn't invent the Internet, who did?

[The Great RJ]

While the Internet may have had roots in government programs it was entrepreneurs who made it into the technological marvel of the millennia. Can you imagine where the Internet would be if the government had controlled and developed it? I am sure it would be at least 20 years behind where it is today or still just a university based curiosity.

However even more key to the Internet is computer technology. Again entrepreneurs and private companies made the first integrated circuits (Fairchild Semiconductor), IBM and Xerox gave us the PC architecture and the basis for a windows graphic users interface and of course Bill Gates and Steven jobs were not government bureaucrats either.

Obama's assertion that the government invented the internet is as bogus as his birth certificate.

[yldstrk]

yeah, the reason for the creation was for government use. That private industry was able to make use of it indicates the creativity of private industry, nothing more. Government doesn’t create things for private industry.

[Carriage Hill]

DARPA, wasn’t it?

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

This is no different than Dear Leader's WHOPPER that "Ramadan" has been "observed" in the White House since Jefferson held the first "Iftar" dinner 200 years ago and gave the impression that this has been an ongoing "practice" ever since.

Complete and utter Bovine Excrement!!!

Jefferson NEVER held an "Iftar" dinner and it wasn't until our clueless, dupe and naive, "Compassionate Conservative" (Boosh) that the observance of Ramadan in the WH (to prove that Islam was/is a "Religion of Pieces") began as an annual event.

[bunkerhill7]

If my memory can function, it started out early 80`s, `90`s as it was all BBS`s and newsgroup protocols and using GOPHER archive search engine out of Univ. of Wisconsin at the local library.

[subterfuge]

Too bad the article doesn’t answer the question of exactly who invented the world wide interweb ethernet thingy.

[TomGuy]

...powerful enough and fast enought so that you could view porn at home

Porn was also a driving force in the development of 'colored' monitors -- through CGI, EGA, VGA.

Porn always seems to grab onto new technology and communications methods, from cave paintings to canvas art to photography, TV, computers.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Bush did it?

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

What about Alexander Graham Bell, Marconi and Wernher Von Braugn. Edison and so many others. All of them built the foundation of what we call the internet. Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the world wide web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee

[central_va]

For good or evil, porn has driven web innovation like nothing else has. In the early days, mid 90’s, we would log into to porn sites just to see how they were pushing the technology envelope.

[cuban leaf]

Do you remember when the internet community chastised a user for trying to sell his computer or something in his messages? The meme back then was powerful: The internet will never be used for commerce of any kind.

:-P

[yldstrk]

You are making think then, that the internet is evil. I will probably start weaning myself off of it and go back to just using my computer for word processing.

[Pharmboy]

From the article:

If the government didn't invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet's backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks.

[adorno]

EVEN if people say the gov made it, who funds the gov? Where does the money to fund said gov come from?

And, who does the government turn to when they actually want something to be built? It's private industry that is contracted to build anything the government uses, whether it be for the armed forces or for the non-military government equipment. In essence, anything that the government does or builds, comes from non-government contractors. The government itself doesn't have the expertise to build what a private company can, and so, the government contracts go to those private companies, where the expertise exists.

[yldstrk]

AND I remember there was a big debate about free software vs purchased.

[r-q-tek86]

Bflr

[Oratam]

I was using Prodigy to follow the Persian Gulf War in ‘90-’91. Clunky, slow, but the basics of the internet were all there.

[the invisib1e hand]

YDBT!

[mkjessup]

Its goal was not maintaining communications during a nuclear attack, and it didn't build the Internet. Robert Taylor, who ran the ARPA program in the 1960s, sent an email to fellow technologists in 2004 setting the record straight: "The creation of the Arpanet was not motivated by considerations of war. The Arpanet was not an Internet. An Internet is a connection between two or more computer networks."

I'm calling *BULL$H*T" on Taylor and that statement. Why?

There are word games being played here, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) developed the network prototype for what would become the Internet not for the purpose of communications DURING a nuclear attack, but AFTER such an attack, should other means of electronic communications be rendered unreliable or unusable due to EMP. The whole concept of 'data packet switching' began with DARPA. It is TRUE that the objective was to develop a reliable means of communication between one or more computers, that is what a network IS.

And if that isn't enough, my late father worked for all of his adult life in the Department of Defense, and his latter years at ERADCOM (Electronics Research And Development Command), and without disclosing any classified data, he made clear to me that DARPA's goals were primarily oriented around preparation and defensive measures to secure and fortify our communications in a time of war.

But of course in the end, Barky is probably right, after all 0bama (P*ss Be Upon Him) speaks nothing but truth, right? ;)

[cuban leaf]

Actually, porn was what kick started VCR movie’s. It was porn that kick started computers and CD-Roms. It is porn that was the leading edge of internet commerce.

Porn is huge with men. Back in the mid 1990’s I was considered a “computer guru” by most of the folks in my church (about 1,500 attending members. They would always call on me if they were having computer problems.

Anyway, even with church deacons, it was interesting to sort their internet history by file size and check out the jpg’s. Usually you didn’t even have to open files called “Hotcoedsbambi.jpg” and such to get the idea.

My wife worked at a catholic college in a midwestern state when we were dating. She would comment on how hard the boys worked in the computer lab on their assignments. So I flew out there one day and she was showing me around. We got to the computer lab and I noticed the layout included a string of five or six computers who’s monitors faced the back wall. I asked her if that was where the boys were working until the wee hours of the morning. She said yes.

We walked up to one of them and I showed here the internet temporary files library, sorted by file size. I showed her the file names (See name above for name type) and opened one file. This was in the days where the image slowly paints from top to bottom. We got about halfway down before she told me to close it.

All the files had a time stamp later than 11:00 PM.

The school closed the computer lab after 10:00 after she brought it to their attention.

Men are susceptible to porn. All men who have not been castrated, that is. And the internet has caused porn to become a major factor in the lives of most males over the age of 13. It is having an impact on our culture, but it will get much, MUCH worse, and in ways nobody has anticipated. You can bank on it.