History of the Internet
networks of humans and non-human actors
JUS 394: CYBERPOLITICS
at ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PROFESSOR: MERLYNA LIM

the internet today....

common history....
(Hobbes' Internet Timeline v8.2)
1957: USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the following year, within the Department of Defense (DoD) to
establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military
1961: Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory
1962: J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: \"On-Line Man Computer Communication\" (August)
1964: Paul Baran, RAND: \"On Distributed Communications Networks\" Packet-switching networks; no
single outage point
1965: ARPA sponsors study on \"cooperative network of time-sharing computers\" TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab
and AN/FSQ-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without
packet switches) via a dedicated 1200bps phone line; Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer at
ARPA later added to form \"The Experimental Network\"
1966: Lawrence G. Roberts, MIT: \"Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared
Computers\" (October) -- First ARPANET plan
1967: ARPANET design discussions held by Larry Roberts at ARPA IPTO PI meeting in Ann Arbor,
Michigan (April), ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (October)
-- First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts, first meeting of the three independent
packet network teams (RAND, NPL, ARPA),
1968: PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Request for quotation
for ARPANET (29 Jul) sent out in August; responses received in September, University of California Los
Angeles (UCLA) awarded Network Measurement Center contract in October, Bolt Beranek and Newman,
Inc. (BBN) awarded Packet Switch contract to build Interface Message Processors (IMPs),
1969: ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking -- Nodes are stood up as BBN
builds each IMP [Honeywell DDP-516 mini computer with 12K of memory]; AT&T provides 50kbps lines, 4
nodes were established at UCLA, Stanford, UCSB, and Utah U.

What’s happening before that?
click:
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/VID/jfk/timeline.htm
and long even before that.......

the TimeLine
1964
Vin Cerf’s
24 MAY 1844
TCP/IP
first
first
unsolicited
email
700 BC email
1974
ARPA
1978
19 MAY 1924
@
1958 1969
ARPANET
connected
1927 1961 2007
4 MAY 1536
UCLA
Kleinrock
AT&T Stanford
1937 Vin Cerf’s
paper
transatlantic UCSB gateway
700 pounds
phone Utah architecture
computer
1973

the unlikely formula
• BIG SCIENCE
• MILITARY RESEARCH
• THE CULTURE OF FREEDOM
Flexibility, absence of command center,
and maximum autonomy of each node

The ARPA Innovative
think tanks
Major research
universities
centers

the internet and grassroots
• The culture of individual freedom -- university campuses
in the 1960s and 1970s
• The role of grad students in ARPANET -- Network Working
Group --- bridging the big science and the broader student
culture (BBs and Usenet)
• The rise of autonomous networks -- influenced the
development of commercial services

self evolution
• Self-evolving development
• Users became producers and shapers of the networks
self governance
• Shared protocol development
• Agreement on standards
• Assignments of Internet names and addresses
IETF, IRTF, IANA, ICANN, W3C

but that was a history....
the internet continues to keep being
shaped...
socially, politically, culturally,
economically...
still, the initial socio-technical
characteristics embedded in its design
carries weight in its development....