General Discussion

applegrove

(118,696 posts) Mon Jul 23, 2012, 10:57 PM Jul 2012

"WSJ mangles history to argue government didn't launch the Internet" by Timothy B. Lee

WSJ mangles history to argue government didn't launch the Internet

by Timothy B. Lee at Arts Technica

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/

"SNIP.............................................

Crovitz is right that Vinton Cerf, along with Bob Kahn, invented the TCP/IP protocol that is the foundation of the modern Internet. But he neglects to mention that Cerf's early work on the protocol was funded by the US military through its DARPA program.

"Hyperlinks" are not the Internet, and Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent them. Nor is the World Wide Web the Internet, although the Web has become such a popular Internet application that many people confuse the two. But more to the point, Berners-Lee was working at CERN, a research organization funded by European governments, when he invented the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.

Xerox is indeed a private company, and Xerox PARC researchers did develop some important computing technologies, including Ethernet and the graphical user interface. But it's not accurate to say that "the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks." Ethernet was designed primarily as a local networking technology to connect computers in a home or office. The point of the Internet's TCP/IP protocol was to allow networks using different standards, including Ethernet, to communicate with each other. Many of the networks that now comprise the Internet use the Ethernet protocol, but what makes the Internet the Internet is TCP/IP, not Ethernet.

Indeed, not only is Crovitz confused about the origins of the Internet, he also seems not to understand the conventions of the World Wide Web. He quotes George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen as saying that "The Internet, in fact, reaffirms the basic free market critique of large government." But that quote wasn't written by Cowen. It was quoted by Cowen in a 2005 blog post. The page Cowen was quoting has succumbed to bitrot, but the Internet Archive has a copy.

..............................................SNIP"

8 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

"WSJ mangles history to argue government didn't launch the Internet" by Timothy B. Lee (Original Post) applegrove Jul 2012 OP

The government did not launch the internet. Universities did. As a University professor, my Mom had robinlynne Jul 2012 #1

1972 hunter Jul 2012 #2

thanks! University of Piuttsburgh had internet too. It was in dos back then..... robinlynne Jul 2012 #4

Yes--they did it on the government's dime n/t eridani Jul 2012 #5

the government did not have access to the net. Ar you saying Univeristies had federal funding a lon robinlynne Jul 2012 #6

Yes, it was federally funded muriel_volestrangler Jul 2012 #8

ARPANET wasn't partially government funded and then split and even regulated or... uponit7771 Jul 2012 #7

We used to laugh at Soviet Pravda... hunter Jul 2012 #3

robinlynne

(15,481 posts)

1. The government did not launch the internet. Universities did. As a University professor, my Mom had

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 12:40 AM

Jul 2012

internet access several years before it was available elsewhere.

hunter

(38,317 posts)

2. 1972

Reply to robinlynne (Reply #1)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 12:55 AM

Jul 2012

15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames.

I got my first internet account in 1979.

Before that, I was an occasional guest.

robinlynne

(15,481 posts)

4. thanks! University of Piuttsburgh had internet too. It was in dos back then.....

Reply to hunter (Reply #2)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 01:11 AM

Jul 2012

eridani

(51,907 posts)

5. Yes--they did it on the government's dime n/t

Reply to robinlynne (Reply #1)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 01:19 AM

Jul 2012

robinlynne

(15,481 posts)

6. the government did not have access to the net. Ar you saying Univeristies had federal funding a lon

Reply to eridani (Reply #5)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 01:43 AM

Jul 2012

long time ago? Funding to universities is diverse. Federal funding left quite a while ago. I remember they had to take on rich foreign students to keep afloat. And sometimes if the students were failing, professors were not permitted ot fail them, because that is where the funding came form.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,321 posts)

8. Yes, it was federally funded

Reply to robinlynne (Reply #6)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 07:12 AM

Jul 2012

Where Did It Come From?

In the mid-60's, Paul Baran of the RAND Institute was commissioned by the Air Force to study how to maintain command and control after a nuclear attack. The solution that Baran suggested involved a technology called "packet switching," which would allow a message on a network to find its destination via any route available. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) believed that Baran's theory would work and that such a network would not only fulfill the Air Force's original missions, but would also answer the agency's need for sharing information between its many research institutions. In 1969, ARPANET was born.
...
As ARPANET aged, it grew at a steady pace, constantly connecting more computers and institutions, and adding new technologies along the way. In 1983, ARPANET converted its old NCP to the newer and more universal TCP/IP. This created what is known today as the Internet, since it allowed different networks (ARPANET, NSFNET, CSNET, BITNET) to be interconnected. The TCP/IP protocol is still used today.

In 1990, a mere 21 years after its creation, ARPANET, with its slow data transmission lines, was disbanded by the Department of Defense. The other networks that had come together around ARPANET could handle the traffic more quickly and efficiently. ARPANET's disappearance caused almost no disruption in network traffic. And while it wasn't a nuclear missile that ended ARPANET, in the end, Paul Baran's theory of a decentralized network had faced reality and proved itself a success.
...
"The roles of ARPA and the Defense Communications Agency were critical both in supplying sustained funding for implementing the protocols on various computers and operating systems and for the persistent and determined application of the new protocols to real needs."

Vint Cerf

http://smithsonian.yahoo.com/arpanet2.html

It started as a government project. The government gives contracts to universities for research work - hence "the agency's need for sharing information between its many research institutions".

uponit7771

(90,347 posts)

7. ARPANET wasn't partially government funded and then split and even regulated or...

Reply to robinlynne (Reply #1)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 02:57 AM

Jul 2012

... at least suggestions made by the US government?

hunter

(38,317 posts)

3. We used to laugh at Soviet Pravda...

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Tue Jul 24, 2012, 01:08 AM

Jul 2012

"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 10

Reply to this discussion