The Internet

Definition of Internet

Federal Networking Council (FNC) – Oct. 24, 1995“Internet” refers to the global information system that:

Logically linked IP addresses Supports communications using TCP/IP Provides services publicly and privately

Simple version:

“The Internet is a global system of networked computers together with their users and data.”

“Network of Networks” Internet = inter-networked networks

History of Internet

1957 USSR launches Sputnik 1958 US forms ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency)

within DOD (Dept. of Defense) to establish US lead in military science and technology

1961 Len Kleinrock at MIT writes first paper on packet-switching theory Packet-switching is developed by Paul Baran and Donald Davies

at Rand Corp. 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis 1963 President Kennedy is assassinated 1964 The Beatles come to America

History of Internet – cont.

1965 Ted Nelson gives ACM presentation called “A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate” Concept was called “docuverse,” used term “hypertext” Never had a working model

1968 ARPA mails out 140 requests for proposals to prospective contractor to build first 4 IMPs (Interface Message Processors)

1969 Apollo 11 – Neil Armstrong is first man to walk on moon 7/20/69 Original Woodstock is held at Max Yasgar’s farm in NY 8/15/69

History of Internet – cont.

1969 (cont.) ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)

is created by BBN (Bolt, Beranek, and Newman) for DOD Goals:

Maintain communications in the event of attack Enable researchers to share “supercomputing” power

4 nodes (hosts) initially: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) University of Utah University of California Los Angles (UCLA) University of California Santa Barbara

Later ARPANET is known as Internet

History of Internet – cont.

1969 (cont.) ARPANET (cont.)

Features: “Open architecture’ Allowed sharing of resources Facilitated communications Designed to withstand damage

1970’s LANs become prevalent ARPANET is used by military, universities, larger

companies – not by general population Beatles break up

1971 Michael Hart begins Project Gutenberg

History of Internet – cont.

1972 ARPANET nodes increase to 23; becomes international Email is introduced by Ray Tomlinson at BBN; he uses the

@ symbol to distinguish between the sender’s name and the network name in the address

Telnet specification for terminal emulation: allows a user at a remote computer to log on to another computer over a network and enter commands at a prompt as if they were directly connected to the remote computer

History of Internet – cont.

1973 FTP (File Transfer Protocol) specification was developed;

allows users to log onto a remote computer, list the files on that computer, and download files from that computer

Pink Floyd releases Dark Side of the Moon 1976

Queen Elizabeth sends her first email and is the first state leader to do so

Pres. Candidate Jimmy Carter and running mate Walter Mondale use email to plan events

UUCP (Unix to Unix CoPy) is developed and distributed with Unix – allowed file transfer and remote command execution

History of Internet – cont.

1977 Apple Computer popularized personal computing;

sneakernet is used to share info Saturday Night Fever becomes best-selling album

1979 USENET (User Network) is developed – newsgroups

emerged from this; first connection was between Duke and Univ. of NC at Chapel Hill

First walkman is made available by Sony

History of Internet – cont.

1980 CSNET (Computer Science Network) is created – connects

US university CS departments; joins ARPANET in 1981 John Lennon is murdered in front of his apt in NYC

(12/8/80) USA beats USSR in ice hockey

1981 BITNET (Because It’s Time Network) connects City Univ of

NY and Yale; mailing lists originate from this

History of Internet – cont.

1981 (cont.) IBM introduces the IBM personal computer MTV launches its music video channel providing

commercials for songs 1982

“Internet” is used for the first time Scott Fahlman starts the smiley culture by using :-) to

suggest emotions in emails (9/19/1982) http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/smiley/smiley.html

History of Internet – cont.

1983 CDs start to appear on store shelves TCP/IP is required for all ARPANET hosts

TCP/IP – rules for how networks making up the ARPANET communicate

No charge; open system – all computers are now “speaking the same language”

Allowed growth; central administration not necessary

History of Internet – cont.

1984 DNS (Domain Name System) is established with network

addresses identified by extensions like .com, .edu, .org; developed by Sun Microsystems

“Neuromancer” by William Gibson is published introducing the term “cyberspace”

1985 NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) is formed to

connect the NSF’s 5 super-computing centers 1987

CDs outsell records

History of Internet – cont.

1988 Virus called the Internet Worm was written by Robert Morris,

a grad student at Cornell, and temporarily shuts down 10% of Internet hosts

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is developed by Jarkko Oikarinen; provided real-time chatting

1989 NSF takes over control of ARPANET Hosts on Internet > 100,000

1990 Archie, an archive of FTP sites, is created

History of Internet – cont.

1991 Gopher is developed at Univ of Minnesota; allows you to

“go for” files using menu-based system NSF decides Internet should not only be used for

educational entities WWW – Tim Berners-Lee at CERN

1992 WWW publicly available US Rep Rick Boucher from VA authors law which allows

first commercial traffic on Internet

History of Internet – cont.

1993Mosaic

Released by Marc Andreessen and several other students at the Univ of Illinois

first Web browser to provide easy-to-use point and click GUI Sometimes called NCSA Mosaic (National Center for

Supercomputing Applications) Becomes primary navigating tool for the WWW which

accounts for 1% of Internet traffic 1994

Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark form Netscape Communications and release Netscape Navigator

White House launches www.whitehouse.gov Commercial sites are coming on-line; spamming starts

History of Internet – cont.

1994 (cont) David Filo and Jerry Yang start Yahoo! as “Jerry Yang’s

Guide to the WWW” Tim Berners-Lee starts W3C: an organization dedicated to

developing technologies for the WWW 1995

Vatican launches its Website: www.vatican.va Java programming language is developed by Sun

Microsystems CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy provide dial-up

Internet access Browser wars begin as Microsoft introduces MIE in summer

of 1995 Jeff Bezos launches Amazon

History of Internet – cont.

1996 Approx 45 million people are using the Internet with about

30 million in North America Browser wars continue – two most powerful are left:

Netscape and MIE Plug-ins and helper applications emerge for multimedia eBay is launched Free speech issues are addressed; an attempt to regulate

content on the Internet is termed an affront to the First Amendment (06/1996)

ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger provides Instant Messaging

History of Internet – cont.

1997 MIE is integrated into the desktop Internet traffic records are broken on 07/08/1997 when the

NASA Website broadcasts images taken by Pathfinder on Mars (46 million hits)

Princess Diana dies in car crash; Elton John’s musical tribute to her, Candle in the Wind, is best selling single of all time

History of Internet – cont.

1998 Netscape Navigator source code is released Google is launched; uses links to assess a site’s popularity

(09/27/2005) Consumers over the age of 30 purchase more music than

those under 30 for the first time ever 1999

Northeastern student Shawn Fanning creates Napster, an application that allows sharing music files

The number of Internet users worldwide reaches 150 million (beginning of 1999); more than 50% in the US

David Bowie’s newest album becomes the first by a major artist to be made available by Internet download

History of Internet – cont.

2000 Dotcom bust – Internet bubble bursts Music file sharing is very popular at sites like MP3.com

using Napster software Love Bug virus

2002 Napster folds when the court rules that the company is

violating copyright laws 2003

CAN-SPAM Act is signed by Pres. Bush Spam accounts for about 50% of all emails Apple introduces Apple iTunes Music Store offering 99 cent

downloads