Talk:History of the Internet/Archive 5

October 2012
Please correct the link target from AT&T to AT&T. 12.153.112.21 (talk) 16:34, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * If I have this right, it looks like AT&T Corporation is a legacy company of AT&T that didn't get acquired in re-bradned until the 2000s. Based on a comparison of the dates, this appears to be a correct correction request to link to the legacy company. I went ahead and put it in. Corporate 20:11, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

First "public" use of the arpanet/internet?
Late yesterday (21:43, 9 March 2013) I reverted a change made by User:Sbrower1 at 19:49, 9 March 2013 that removed the following content:
 * It was around this time that the first "public" use of the arpanet/internet occurred. A UCLA student, Steven Brower, who was also a reporter for the UCLA Daily Bruin newspaper attended an open house in the UCLA Arpanet lab.  He was particularly interested in the APE program (Associated Press news "online" and searchable) available through the node at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL).  One of Kleinrock's assistants, Ari Ollikainen, provided him with a key to the lab and instructions on usage of the Arpanet, which he used without challenge over the next several years.  (The terminal was a TI Silent 700 with an acoustical coupler.  SAIL was contacted by entering "@l 11".  The logon was NET and the password was GUE[st], which information was available by responding "Help Logon" when met with the "Logon:" challenge.)

The next morning Sbrower1 started a discussion on my talk page which I would like to continue here. Here is a copy of the discussion:
 * History of the Internet


 * You said that my comment about the possible first public user was interesting but needed a citation. My post (which was, I think obviously, about me) is based on first person knowledge.  I intentionally included some of the detail, and the interesting information, to enhance value and to add authenticity.  I have been making the claim, for many years, that I was the "first user of the internet."  For 20 years I have done so as with a humorous slant.  However, since no one has contradicted me during those 20 years, it appears to be a true statement.


 * HOWEVER, I am not familiar with Wiki rules and etiquite and I am interested in your thoughts about what "citation" would be necessary to allow the information to stand, pending any truly contrary data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbrower1 (talk • contribs) 05:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)


 * You might want to look at the Plain and simple conflict of interest guide, which among other things says: "Do not edit articles about yourself, your business, your clients, or your competitors" and "Subjects require significant coverage in independent reliable sources". Also, you said "since no one has contradicted me during those 20 years, it appears to be a true statement". But you might also ask if in those 20 years anyone has agreed with you? --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 11:38, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's continue the discussion here. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Once again, I hope that this post is consistent with appropriate principle and etiquite. I have reviewed the Conflict of Interest policy and I don't think it prohibited my post but, as you can see, I am glad to defer to Mr. Ogden's superior understanding of Wikipedia protocol, so I will continue with the discussion here until advised otherwise. I am unaware of any "independent" source for the information which I proposed to be added. I doubt that Ari remembers me or my door key or my usage because it was a "one time" event for him, even though I accessed Arpanet hundreds of times after that. I was in the lab in the middle of the night and almost never saw anyone else. (When I did, posession of the key and Ari's name sufficed - security and protocols were very different in 1973-75.) Indeed, in my speeches over the last 30 years (some of them are listed at www.sbrower.com), I have pointed out MOST of the nodes on the Arpanet, at that time, would respond with a valid guest logon and password in response to "help logon". Mr. Ogden asked a question "if in those 20 years anyone has agreed with you?" In fact, for the first 10 years the claim was made by Marr Haack, the St. Paul Insurance underwriter who first issued "Computer Errors & Omissions Insurance" when he would introduce me for presentations. I have received "agreement" from about 5 people who knew abut the Arpanet but whose usage (if any) started after mine. The other 2,500 or so people who have heard the claim have, from time to time, expressed interest or astonishment, but had no factual response. (The most common response is "I thought Al Gore invented the internet" - I am, to be honset, very tired of hearing that one.) As I have further researched Wikipedia I have come to realize that it is not intended to be a source of information, but a repacker or information found on other sources. But so many topics (like this one) are based on oral history - I request guidance on how this should be handled. Sbrower1 (talk) 21:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC) sbrower1 20:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Mr. Brower, you almost answered your own question. First off, congratulations for being at the right place and right time. Second, your wry analysis of Wikipedia's sourcing propensity is correct. New information is not supposed to pop up here first. It's supposed to pop up in a book, a media report, news release, a magazine, etc. Most information should be essentially "published" first elsewhere, generally by going through the full gambit of publishing company editors and peer reviews and corroboration. It has to jump through a lot of hoops.


 * My suggestion is to blog it briefly, and then contact a historian, an archivist, a university spokesperson, a newspaper (if you can find one), a news network, etc. Then what will happen is that this information should be vetted by the media organization and then eventually published. Your words will be tweaked, commented on, and abrogated in strange and unusual ways, but you will at least have your say. Alternately, you could YouTube it or self-publish it. If you choose self publication, it is unlikely to appear in this article, but remotely possible. At the end of the day, you might get a spot on a talk show or some video blogger will pick it up. So you might need to have an open spot in your schedule.


 * And lastly, take a deep breath. If you are discovered by some American talk show, you will essentially have a virtual debate with Mr. Gore. Be ready for that. Not too many people know about Crocker, Kleinrock, et al. Not too many people know anything about history, for that matter. I like to saw logs! (talk) 03:38, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

"TCP/IP" is bogus, it's just "IP"
While TCP may be the majority protocol in use on the Internet, it is by far not the only protocol. I move to replace all references of "TCP/IP" that aren't specifically about TCP to just "IP". --Rchandra 19:51, 1 November 2012‎


 * This suggested change isn't a good idea. The phrase "TCP/IP" is widely used and accepted shorthand for "Internet protocol suite" which includes all of the Internet protocols and not just TCP or IP. It has been in use for more than 25 years. See the lead of the Internet protocol suite article for an explanation. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 14:06, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Concur with the 'TCP/IP is shorthand for the IPS now' view. Noel (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Viewtron, Minitel, Videotext??
I feel it is appropriate to at least mention early internet like services offered by phone companies in the early 80s - somewhere in the article.. These services were on text and simple pixel animation computers distributed by the phone companies to view limited content selected by the phone companies. The available "sites" were phone directories, news, stocks, banking, shopping, and e-mails. Watch this AT&T video from 1983 to get an idea. They call it the "first comercial video text service." It's also interesting to here the host talk about "we are living in the information age," "information overload," and other ideas we here today. It's also interesting how they pitch the product as a way to quickly sort through and find things vs. searching through pages of newspapers, magazines, etc.--cooljuno411 18:43, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * That depends on whether you view this as the 'History of the Internet' article, or the 'History of Computer Networking'. I know that to many people they are now synonomous, but they are in fact different. The content you mention belongs in the latter article, but not the former. Noel (talk) 20:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Major hubs
Can a section be made on where the major internet access distribution points are located/were first made ? Add the map: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_of_submarine_cables.png KVDP (talk) 10:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Would the suggested addition be better as part of one of these articles or a new article that summarizes infrormation from these articles and adds more historical data?
 * Internet exchange point
 * List of Internet exchange points
 * Network Access Point (NAP)
 * Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX)
 * Federal Internet Exchange (FIX)
 * --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 20:18, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Class rating?
This is a C-class article. Is that the proper rating for the article as it stands today?

What needs to be done to move the article to B-class?


 * --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request in two parts
In order to reduce whitespace and improve layout across more devices, please make two changes:

(1) Add:
 *  

immediately above the line:

(2) Shorten the name of the following section:
 * ARPANET to the federal wide area networks: MILNET, NSI, ESNet, CSNET, and NSFNET

to
 * From ARPANET to NSFNET

Thanks in advance. 68.165.77.221 (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)


 * ✅. I made the suggested edits. --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 11:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request for clumsy sentence structure
Totally nitty, I know, but the phrase "The Internet's takeover over the global communication landscape" in the last paragraph of the intro really grates. Maybe change to "The Internet's takeover of the global communication landscape"?

Drhayes (talk) 14:55, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done. Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 March 2014
Her is a citation for "The first ARPANET link was established between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Stanford Research Institute at 22:30 hours on October 29, 1969." http://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-room-where-the-internet-was-born-1527205592.

Margcphelan (talk) 18:04, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: I can't seem to find this in the source.
 * Pictogram voting info.svg Note: You should be autoconfirmed and able to edit this page yourself.  Anon 126   (talk - contribs) 23:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Source for Lickliler and Clark (1962)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet#Three_terminals_and_an_ARPA Fourth row. Proposed citation:

http://doczine.com/bigdata/2/1367101152_1399076c53/046f1309d01.pdf --Erkebrad (talk) 13:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 May 2014
Hyperlink "packet networking" to "Network pack" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_packet) in the second sentence.

BrendanDHarris (talk) 03:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done 123chess456 (talk) 04:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Nuclear War 'Myth'
I have removed the following: The widespread urban legend that the Internet was designed to resist a nuclear attack likely arose as a result of Baran's earlier work on packet switching, which did focus on redundancy in the face of a nuclear "holocaust". --

It appears to be undeniable that Paul Baran's work with the RAND Corporation played a part in the development of the Internet. The story is not an 'urban legend' but at worst an exaggeration or oversimplification. The Johnson article provides no evidence that the Internet was created from 'economic necessity' and simply plays down Baran's role. This link - - in fact confirms the nuclear war story.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:49, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

My name (Ben Segal) wrongly redirected
I just noticed that in Section 6.1, CERN, the European Internet, the link to the Pacific and beyond, the reference 36 correctly refers to a paper by me (Ben Segal of CERN) but my name is linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Segal which in turn gets redirected to a page of a deceased person named Judah Segal.

How can this be fixed?

Ben

Bsegal (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

PS: I have just requested via Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects that this erroneous redirect from Ben_Segal to  Judah_Segal be removed so maybe you do not need to do anything.

PPS: Do you recommend that I propose having my own Wikipedia page?

Bsegal (talk) 13:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, I have fixed the erroneous redirect which now points to my Wiki User page. Bsegal (talk) 09:35, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Article chronologically is wrong and biased
The internet starts with HTTP protocol and hypertext markup language. Protocols such as TCP / IP netware, and others were just technology used to develop the WEB and not its primary context. Say that these protocols were the basis for the internet, and they are cited as the Internet itself, is the same thing as saying that the creator of the internet were the fumes of Apache tribe, (no they would not think of distance communication). The HTTP protocol was "the big idea", since the documents could be hyperlinked with each other, creating a network of documents, THAT IS THE TRUE INTERNET. The story should start here, and only mention the technology that helped create the internet. Or change the wiki of automotive for the stone age and stone wheels.

(Tjnevorah (talk) 05:49, 23 September 2013 (UTC))
 * You are confusing the internet with the world wide web.24.108.28.165 (talk) 23:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

However, most people use the word "internet" to mean the world wide web. Perhaps the article should also discuss the relation between the 2 and the crucial role of Berners-Lee. At the moment it does indeed seem biased.Paulhummerman (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * There is an existing discussion of this at Internet. There are also two other articles that cover the WWW and Berners-Lee's role: World Wide Web and History of the World Wide Web. -Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 03:04, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

What is an internet, and history of the name of the Internet
I have a bit of a problem with this:

The term "internet" was adopted in the first RFC published on the TCP protocol (RFC 675:[31] Internet Transmission Control Program, December 1974) as an abbreviation of the term internetworking and the two terms were used interchangeably. In general, an internet was any network using TCP/IP. It was around the time when ARPANET was interlinked with NSFNET in the late 1980s, that the term was used as the name of the network, Internet, being the large and global TCP/IP network.[32]

Now, I can't comment on whether internet generally meant "any network using TCP/IP" back in 1974, but I'm skeptical. I can say that it certainly didn't mean that by the 80's. An internet or internetwork was just an interconnected set of networks, as mentioned earlier, regardless of the protocol suite it was running.

Internetworking was common with the DECnet and AppleTalk protocol suites as well as with the TCP/IP protocol suite. Indeed, Apple had a product (a router for the AppleTalk protocol suite) that was called AppleTalk Internet Router - and it didn't do any TCP/IP; it's purpose was to connect several AppleTalk networks together to form an AppleTalk internet.

In the early days, therefore, you had to distinguish which internet you were talking about. What is now simply called the Internet was, back then, often called the connected Internet or the ARPA Internet to disambiguate it. The current Internet wasn't even the only attempt to create a global connected internet - there were attempts to create a connected AppleTalk internet and I think a connected DECnet internet, too, although nither ever really gained a huge amount of traction.

It's going to need some work to rework this but I'm just putting this here in order to gather information and references.

There's a USENET post here quoting Bill Clinton in 1999. Bill Clinton uses both "the Internet" and "the connected Internet" in his address. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/%22the$20connected$20internet%22/alt.politics/HtYUgQ7Co1A/eKifrR7EZbgJ

This document, describing a multiprotocol router from HP, talks about its capabilities in respect of a "DECnet internetwork" ftp://ftp-boi.external.hp.com/ftp1/pub/networking/software/59628770.pdf

Secondly, Tannenbaum notwithstanding, it's always been, as now, "the Internet", complete with definite article - as now, we never called the network simply "Internet", unadorned (although occasionally clueless journalists did).

There's more work to do to find references and dates. Also I found a reference to Comer's book Internetworking with TCP/IP which looks useful re 'connected Internet'; I have a copy of that textbook on my shelf so will look it up.

Roybadami (talk) 19:26, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

-

Request to add 25 Years of the Internet Infographic
Request to add 25 Years of The Internet to External Links section for an interactive and approachable way of looking at the History of the Internet

Chrisparallax (talk) 13:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)


 * ❌ or at least I'm not going to do it. Another editor may feel differently. This article already has too many external links and the timeline presented seems more about the World Wide Web than the Internet. Perhaps this would be better as part of the History of the World Wide Web? Also, scrolling from year to year didn't seem to work very smoothly on my Macbook Pro using Firefox. -Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 16:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2015
78.157.25.29 (talk) 13:32, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 13:58, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: as you have not requested a change.

Recent edit in lead section
I believe the recent additon to the first sentence of the fourth paragraph of the lead section is unclear and poorly worded, it also seems to conflate the Internet with the World Wide Web. I have begun by removing the unnecessary "thus" and "hence", but I am not completely sure exactly what the author means in the first sentence so I am not sure what alternate wording to suggest, or if the sentence indeed belongs in the lead at all. --HarryHenryGebel (talk) 05:27, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

History including INWG 39, vote to base Internet on INWG 96, etc
The article should include the work of the International Packet Network Working Group (INWG). It should include the 1975 consensus to use the INWG 96 protocol by Cerf, Scantlebury, Zimmermann, and McKenzie, that resulted from "Pouzin and Cerf issued INWG 85 calling for a vote by mail on an End-To-End Protocol to be forwarded to standards bodies.". Then cover the subsequent move by Kahn and DARPA to base the Internet on the older INWG 39, which had been part of the basis for INWG 96. See IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (Vol 33, No 1, pp 66-71,) INWG and the Conception of the Internet: An Eyewitness Account, and The Internet's First Turning Point - High Tech Forum ★NealMcB★ (talk) 16:48, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on History of the Internet. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090221023658/http://undertow.arch.gatech.edu:80/homepages/virtualopera/cyber24/SITE/htm3/site.htm to http://undertow.arch.gatech.edu/homepages/virtualopera/cyber24/SITE/htm3/site.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081222030955/http://undertow.arch.gatech.edu:80/homepages/virtualopera/cyber24/SITE/htm3/toc.htm?new to http://undertow.arch.gatech.edu/homepages/virtualopera/cyber24/SITE/htm3/toc.htm?new

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 07:54, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

digital
please change ((digital)) to ((Digital data|digital))


 * ✅ - thanks for the suggestion - Arjayay (talk) 16:02, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Removal of Illustration - Inaccurate Information
I removed an illustration which purported to show a history of web browsers in the article. The illustration stated that the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau in 1991. This is untrue. Tim Berners-Lee was the sole inventor of the Web in March 1989. Robert Cailliau was an enthusiastic supporter. Please see link to Tim Berners-Lee's own web page at the World Wide Web Consortium -

https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/

"Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He founded and Directs the World Wide Consortium (W3C) the forum for technical development of the Web. He founded the Web Foundation whose mission is that the WWW serves Humanity, and co-founded the Open Data Institute in London. His research group at MIT's Computer Science and AI Lab ("CSAIL") plans to re-decentralize the Web. Tim spends a lot of time fighting for rights such as privacy, freedom and openness of the Web."

And CERN articles -

http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/birth-web

"Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989. The web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world.

The first website at CERN - and in the world - was dedicated to the World Wide Web project itself and was hosted on Berners-Lee's NeXT computer. The website described the basic features of the web; how to access other people's documents and how to set up your own server. The NeXT machine - the original web server - is still at CERN. As part of the project to restore the first website, in 2013 CERN reinstated the world's first website to its original address."

http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/03/world-wide-web-born-cern-25-years-ago

(CERN article from 2014 celebrating 25 years since the invention of the Web)

"In March 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist working at CERN, submitted a proposal to develop a radical new way of linking and sharing information over the internet. The document was entitled Information Management: A Proposal (link is external). And so the web was born." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Etheldavis (talk • contribs) 19:23, 13 September 2015 (UTC) (Etheldavis (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2015 (UTC))

Bill Nye for National Science Foundation
Suggested file to add to this article. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:02, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on History of the Internet. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060216081719/http://www.complexify.com:80/buttons/ to http://www.complexify.com/buttons/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080516043146/http://jrobb.mindplex.org/2003/08/16.html to http://jrobb.mindplex.org/2003/08/16.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 23:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 November 2015
The internet was made in 1990s And remains popular to the younger generations to society, especially porn hub

139.130.58.154 (talk) 02:06, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Assuming good faith, this is unimportant/trival. -- ferret (talk) 15:32, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Netday '95-2004
I was thinking that NetDay should be mentioned in the article, since it helped contribute towards the Internet's growth. Netday was an event established in 1995 by then President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to connect schools, libraries, and clinics worldwide to the Internet by the year 2000. President Clinton once said, "I'm proud to have been the President who brought the White House into the digital age. When I became President, there were just 50 websites on the World Wide Web. Now there are 17 million and almost 50 million households online in the United States alone" (Presidential Libraries; July 8, 2000). --Marioluigi98 (talk) 15:12, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 December 2015
I don't know who wrote this, but I think this section is highly suspect in this section "World Wide Web and introduction of browsers"

>> The explosion in popularity of the Web was triggered in September 1993 by NCSA Mosaic, <<

There was no "explosion in popularity" of the Internet until two factors happened. Browers, yes, but ISPs were also in short supply for household consumers. Ironically an earlier text "NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic" hit on the actual cause of the Internet boom. And to my mind no other factor made this take full effect than in the summer of 1995 AOL made the World Wide Web accessible via their internal browser. AOL had millions of users at this point and it was this availability of the net that drove new ISPs into being. The fact that AOL is only mentioned once on this page is tragic.

Here is a suggestion on how it should read:

A boost in web users was triggered in September 1993 by NCSA Mosaic, a graphical browser which eventually ran on several popular office and home computers.[65] This was the first web browser aiming to bring multimedia content to non-technical users, and therefore included images and text on the same page, unlike previous browser designs;[66] its founder, Marc Andreessen, also established the company that in 1994, released Netscape Navigator, which resulted in one of the early browser wars, when it ended up in a competition for dominance (which it lost) with Microsoft Windows' Internet Explorer. Finally in 1995 with the commercial use restrictions lifted, popular online service America Online (AOL) offered their users a connection to the Internet via their own internal browser.

73.48.160.137 (talk) 22:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request
I would like to add this event: "ARPANET experienced a complete halt on 27 October 1980 because of an accidentally-propagated status-message virus that can be considered the first internet hack in history." Sources: Mvrk80 (talk) 15:12, 18 March 2016 (UTC)Mvrk80
 * 1) This Day in History: October 27 | Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/October/27/
 * 2)     Hobbes' Internet Timeline - the definitive ARPAnet & Internet history, http://www.cs.kent.edu/~javed/internetbook/hobbestimeline/HIT.html
 * 3)     ARPANET Outage Data Breach, su Person of Interest Wiki, http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/ARPANET_Outage_Data_Breach
 * 4)     James F. Kurose,Keith W. Ross, Reti di calcolatori e Internet. Un approccio top-down, Pearson, 2008, p. 660, ISBN 9788871924557.
 * 5)     Happy Anniversary to the Early Internet's First Network-Wide Crash, http://motherboard.vice.com/read/happy-anniversary-to-the-early-internets-first-network-wide-crash

Who was first?
I just reverted two edits by User:Twobells. The version before Twobells' changes read:


 * Packet switching networks such as ARPANET, Mark I at NPL in the UK, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of communications protocols. The ARPANET in particular led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks.

The version after Twobells' changes read:


 * Packet switching networks such as ARPANET, Mark I at NPL in the UK, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of communications protocols. Donald Davies was the first to put theory into practice by designing a packet-switched network at the National Physics Laboratory in the UK, the first of its kind in the world and the cornerstone for UK research for almost two decades. Following, ARPANET further led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks.

We are now back to the original version without twobells' changes. According to the ARPANET article the first APRANET messages were exchanged in October 1969. The abstract to the article that twobells' cited (I don't have access to the full article) includes this sentence: "The report focuses on the construction of the NPL Data Communications Network, which first became operational in 1970." Given this, I think it is best to avoid claims about who was "first". --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 04:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No-one is trying to create a 'who was first' argument, all I was doing was correcting the chronology, the network at NPL created by Davies was both the first packet-switched network and the first such network described so. The NPL DCN wasn't the first network just a larger version of the original which was created in 1966. One notable source is Yates' insighftul work 'Turing's Legacy: A History of Computing at the National Physical Laboratory 1945-1995' page 117
 * --Twobells''t@lk 12:15, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * --Twobells''t@lk 12:15, 19 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It is hard to avoid a "who is first" argument with the wording "Donald Davies was the first to put theory into practice by designing a packet-switched network at the National Physics Laboratory in the UK ...". It seems as if there are two NPL networks being mentioned at different points in the article and one of them became operational in 1970 (see the sub-section on NPL a little further on in the article). If that is the case, we need to make that clear since right now the article seems to contradict itself. Perhaps this more detailed information doesn't belong in the lead, but could be put into the sub-section on NPL instead. It would also be good to include a specific date or at least the year when "Davies put theory into practice". --Jeff Ogden (W163) (talk) 13:31, 19 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The Campbell-Kelly piece is clear (page 236) that a single node was finally connected in 1970. Prior to that, in the article, they put a lot of emphasis on designs and planning. That's a single node (a single packet switch), and, depending on your definitions, maybe a network. On the Arpanet (see Abbate, Inventing the Internet, for example), the first packet switch was connected to a host in September 1969, and two packet switches (each with a host) communicated in October 1969. In terms of the planning and things people wanted to do, on page 228 of the article we see a memorandum written by Davies, the same year that Roberts and Marill, in preparation for ARPA/IPTO's efforts with what would eventually be the Arpanet, wrote Toward A Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers. These contents for firsts are a distracting sideshow, especially when, looking closer at the dates, the Arpanet was indeed first. And, for that matter, BBN, the Arpanet contractor, was doing tests with the IMPs well before deployment (Hafner, Where Wizards Stay Up Late). User89609437 (talk) 05:47, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 December 2015
More mention of BBS systems is required (60,000 BBS's with 17 million users by 1994). BBS operators became the first ISPs. Jack Rickard was seminal, etc.

Humanismws (talk) 18:09, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Not done for now: Okay, where would we find this information to add it? Please provide a source. Discuss-Dubious (t/c) 22:52, 30 December 2015 (UTC) Humanismws (talk) 00:27, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Reverse copyright infringement
See, which copies extensive amounts of this article; it was one of the first Google hits for "not running a communication utility", for example. No attribution to Wikipedia, this article, or its authors is given, and the author of the book reserves all rights. It was published in 2014, but bits such as the "communication utility" were present in the article in 2013. Nyttend (talk) 05:12, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * As the substantial copyright holder of the particular version that had been used, I've filed a DCMA notice to the publisher. This is pretty much the draft I recognise as much of my own work, including a lot of my personal idiosyncratic writing that's disappeared over time, albeit with a simple word-replacement filter run over it to try and mask the origin. Nice to know our work is worth stealing I guess? --Barberio 13:42, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Timeline AfD
Of interest to editors of this page is Articles for deletion/Timeline of popular Internet services.

It seems like a stand-alone version of the "Examples of popular Internet services" built into this page. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 14:41, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * After looking for what editors of this page used for an inclusion criteria, I haven't actually found much. Source that says "popular"? Alexa rating? Featured in a "history of the internet" source? &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 19:53, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Popular Internet services
So there's the "Examples of popular Internet services" sidebar, which currently was added here in 2011, a few entries added between then and 2013, and then split off to Template:Internet history timeline. I'm not seeing any real discussion about what "popular Internet services" means, which suggests it's likely WP:OR. I started a thread about inclusion criteria on the talk page of the separate timeline of popular Internet services which I mentioned above, but didn't get any response. As that looks to be headed for deletion, I thought I'd open a discussion here.

The big picture proposal is that if we can't come up with an inclusion criteria that doesn't require WP:OR, that section should be removed. But here are some possibilities for inclusion criteria and some thoughts on each:
 * Sources calling something "popular" - Who knows how many tens of thousands of sites are described that way, with almost as many senses of the word. It's not a clear word to use and I don't think it helps us define criteria.
 * Traffic - The problem with traffic is that even if we have perfect traffic data over the last 20 years or so, web traffic in the 90s was dramatically less than it is today, such that a site that was among the most popular then probably wouldn't make the top 1000 today.
 * Traffic rankings - Alexa has been doing traffic rankings since, I think, the late 90s. Saying the list includes sites that have been in their top 10 or top 20 is a way to go, but with such a narrow criteria the list should probably be renamed accordingly. Also, historical data is only available to people with paid accounts on Alexa (I don't have one, and my bet is most others editing the page don't).
 * Other timelines of Internet services - If a reliable source has a timeline of popular Internet services or something reasonably similar, we add what it has to the list. The standard for sourcing would have to be high, because many such timelines' criteria are quite low, and would be sensitive to when they were published (e.g. in the early days of the web some people tried to document all the websites they could find).
 * Something else?

&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 15:03, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Updated information on DNT communications between ISS and Earth
In section 2.7 of this article ("Networking in outer space"), is the following sentence:

"Testing of DTN-based communications between the International Space Station and Earth (now termed Disruption-Tolerant Networking) has been ongoing since March 2009, and is scheduled to continue until March 2014.[91]"

This sentence needs to be updated. Ylok (talk) 16:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 January 2017
Please change "Web 2.0: Compact Definition". Scholar.googleusercontent.com. Retrieved 2013-06-15.[dead link] to "https://www.stercodigitex.com/blog/comprehending-the-concept-of-web-2-0/" because its a page which is dead or no longer exist. Ratneshkumarprasad (talk) 16:17, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Sir Joseph (talk) 16:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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First use of the word
I think the first use of the word internet in 1974 should be highlighted more prominently, such as by mentioning it in the lead, along with the fact that it was the shortened form of internetwork(ing) and since when (60s?) that earlier term had been in use. --79.242.203.134 (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Template:Internet history timeline
This lengthy but useful sidebar is blowing out page layout on non-mobile platforms. It is rendered inline as part of the lead on mobile platforms. This template is used only for this article. To improve layout and maintenance issues, I propose to convert the content in the template to a subsection in this article. ~Kvng (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2017
The electronic computer was invented by Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams in Manchester University in 1946 (not "in the 1950s". It ran its first program on July 21st, shortly after 11 am local time. 86.16.186.89 (talk) 15:43, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. This article makes no claim about the first computer so the request here makes no sense. The History of computing hardware article makes it clear that the identification of the first computer is not a simple one. Did you mean to request this change there? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:59, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Reference to early TCP specificaton
RFC 675 was the result of detailed elaboration of the paper 108.31.10.120 (talk) 23:06, 2 February 2019 (UTC)That document was an elaboration on an earlier draft text published as INWG #39 in September (?) 1973. Shouldn't there be at least a reference to the first published paper on TCP in this wiki article?

108.31.10.120 (talk) 23:06, 2 February 2019 (UTC)Vint Cerf

beginning is wrong way
The history of the internet start at CERN. All others are only networks. Is very strange this beginning before.

--Anhaabaete (talk) 01:38, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I guess you mix up WWW and internet!
 * --Kgfleischmann (talk) 03:47, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

First verifiable use of the term "Internet"
Does anyone know of any documented use of the term "Internet" prior to RFC 675 (December 1, 1974)?
 * Haven't seen any prior documented use, although the term Catenet was in prior use. Whizz40 (talk) 09:30, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Second paragraph needs a slight alteration
'Packet switching networks such as ARPANET, NPL network, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet,'. This needs to be edited to read: Packet switching networks such as NPL network, ArpaNet CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, as the NPL network was the first network to use PS.
 * Known timelines indicate that the NPL did not have a fully operational packet switching network until after the ARPANET became active in 1969. GSNW8FRJ (talk) 19:11, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Here are a couple of sources. I wouldn't say either network was fully operational in 1969. While the ARPANET connected four IMPs electronically, that did not provide a fully operational packet switching network (see ARPANET). The Network Control Program was not implemented until 1970 and remote login (Telnet), file transfer (FTP) and email came later. Whizz40 (talk) 21:54, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I changed the wording in the article to say "the NPL local network and the ARPANET were the first two computer networks in the world to use packet switching."

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Internet
"Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Internet" needs to be edited. He did not invent the internet. This conflates the internet and WWW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.67.226 (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, the article doesn't say this anywhere. It only refers to Berners-Lee's contribution to the World Wide Web. Whizz40 (talk) 08:49, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I see now it has already been edited in the article. Whizz40 (talk) 09:09, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ Just adding a visual note that this item is done. - Dyork (talk) 00:59, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Lack of recent historical events
Is there any reason why there are no recent events as part of this article? No mention of any recent changes in the law of the internet. Curious as to why stuff like that is missing, would love to do some more research and make some additions. Dr.Mug (talk) 22:54, 20 September 2020 (UTC)


 * No particular reason... just no one has updated the article with newer info. If you have suggestions, please feel free to add to the page. Additions are definitely welcome. - Dyork (talk) 00:56, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * - Welcome as a student editor! If you do have questions about what should be added, please feel free to add them here on this Talk page. There are a number of people connected to this page who have a good deal of history with the Internet and may be able to offer advice on whether they are appropriate, etc. It sounds like quite an interesting class you are taking! - Dyork (talk) 00:22, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Request at Talk:Internet Society
Hi editors: Those interested in editing articles about the history of the Internet might be interested in my request to update the History section of the Internet Society article. More detail can be found at Talk:Internet Society. I work at the Internet Society, so I have a conflict of interest. Can anyone help? Thank you. Neville at Internet Society (talk) 10:13, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Additional discussion of widespread use
At the end of the section Rise of the global Internet (late 1980s/early 1990s onward)it mentions lifting of commercial restrictions and the introduction of AOL. I think it might be worth adding a sentence clarifying that this is when access to the WWW became widespread at least in the US. I am concerned the talk about the introduction of the internet in homes in the early 90s (which was not widespread) and the following section's discussion of the strides in the 2000s may mislead students trying to grasp when the internet became a widely accessible thing. However, I am not an expert in the subject so I have not added this myself. Some discussion of internet and www access becoming widespread elsewhere in the world (particularly developing areas like the Indian subcontinent) would also be worth adding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:601:4580:9380:35E8:183A:C5BA:1812 (talk) 18:02, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Added the following:
 * The Web began to enter general use in 1993-4, when websites for everyday use started to become available.
 * Hopefully this helps. Whizz40 (talk) 19:00, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Merge from The Internet during the Cold War
The current article The Internet during the Cold War is a tendentious WP:POVFORK sustaining the proposition that the ARPANET was "heavily affected by needs and demands arising from the Cold War" and "was under military control". Most of the article is incorrect, biased, or redundant with this article. --Macrakis (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Whizz40 (talk) 10:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Support - Dyork (talk) 01:05, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * DONE -- there was actually nothing in that other article that was both correct and missing from this article --Macrakis (talk) 21:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Semiconductor technology
I don't see the point of mentioning mosfet in particular.I also have problem with the way sources are used. The Silicon Web: Physics for the Internet Age does not say anything about mosfet being key importance, in fact it only says that "on the basis of these principals useful electronic components were created", and then mentioned a couple. it say nothing about "basic building block of the information revolution and the information age". I am also not able to verify that mosfet " laid the foundation for power electronic technology that later enabled the development of wireless Internet technology". Bailga says nothing about lading foundations,neither does Saad, and the third source says nothing too.

I am going to remove this section all together,since I don't see any point in mentioning mosfet in particular without mentioning Integrated circuit, Microprocessor and lots of other development. If somebody wants to write about semiconductor foundations more neutrally, you are more then welcome to do it. DMKR2005 (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Agree with the removal of this section for the reasons mentioned by - Dyork (talk) 02:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Anyone have experience with Unison Online Service from 1985-1995?
Did anyone actively use the "Unison Online Service" sometime between 1985-1995? Another editor has identified that there is a page about Unison that is only a stub and needs either more info or to be deleted or merged into another page (such as a mention in this History article). You can see the editor's notes on Talk:Unison_Online_Service. Any help would be appreciated. - Dyork (talk) 01:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 September 2021
The Waikato University general history page that once mentioned the university was the first site in NZ connected to the internet (in 1989) has been updated and no longer mentions this factoid. The reference to it should probably be changed to the latest copy at archive.org that still mentioned this, which is https://web.archive.org/web/20200801155046/https://www.waikato.ac.nz/about/history.shtml 203.173.153.83 (talk) 07:00, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. Whizz40 (talk) 15:22, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2020 and 14 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dr.Mug.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Spelling Error
In content 4.1, "World Wide Web and introduction of browsers," there is a spelling mistake in the caption of the 1997 library advertisement—instead of "unfamliar," it should be "unfamiliar." Please fix. Thank you. XKBLUE (talk) 19:25, 14 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Done. Blurryman (talk) 00:19, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Martana2727 (talk) 20:11, 11 March 2022 (UTC) While working on my article, so far this week I have added 4 wikilcnks to words that I knew I would need more information on and added an image to wikimedia for the first time. Additionally, I am still working on using the information from other articles in regards to the history of the internet to build on the article that I have chosen so far. Martana2727 (talk) 20:11, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 May 2022
change "fasted" to fastest" OliverThomeniu (talk) 15:26, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ RudolfRed (talk) 17:45, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Spacing error
Under the heading "1990–2003: Rise of the global Internet, Web 1.0", under the section "Internet use in wider society", there's a missing space between two words:

"The Web opened to the public in 1991and began to enter general use in 1993-4..." Blightowl (talk) 00:44, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Fixed Whizz40 (talk) 08:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Remove Web stuff
This article repeats much of the information already in History of the World Wide Web. Since this article is well over the recommended 50KB (currently 196KB), I think it makes sense to delete most of the Web stuff and point folks over to History of the World Wide Web.


 * "recommended 50 KB" Could you add a link to this recommendation? For people (like me) who are not totally current on all the tiny little details of the Laws of Wikipedia.  --jae (talk) 14:34, 24 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Article_size — Sean Brunnock (talk) 15:45, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

I'd delete History_of_the_Internet, History_of_the_Internet, History_of_the_Internet, and History_of_the_Internet and clean up other references to the Web.

Sean Brunnock (talk) 17:24, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Support I copied those four sections above over to History of the World Wide Web and merged the text into that article. Whizz40 (talk) 09:59, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Whizz40 (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Where did the world's internet broadcasting begin?
kaamil 134.35.7.150 (talk) 20:25, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2023
Please slightly change the header "1990–2003: Rise of the global Internet, Web 1.0" to "1989–2004: Rise of the global Internet, Web 1.0". Berners-Lee started the World Wide Web in 1989 and Web 1.0 lasted until around 2004. 204.111.198.147 (talk) 22:50, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  —  Paper9oll  (🔔 • 📝)  05:51, 11 June 2023 (UTC)