http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/

WHAT IS THE INTERNET?

The Internet is a global network of networks enabling computers of all kinds to directly and transparently communicate and share services throughout much of the world. Because the Internet is an enormously valuable, enabling capability for so many people and organizations, it also constitutes a shared global resource of information, knowledge, and means of collaboration, and cooperation among countless diverse communities

A Brief History of the Internet and Related Networks

Introduction

In 1973, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques and technologies for interlinking packet networks of various kinds. The objective was to develop communication protocols which would allow networked computers to communicate transparently across multiple, linked packet networks. This was called the Internetting project and the system of networks which emerged from the research was known as the "Internet." The system of protocols which was developed over the course of this research effort became known as the TCP/IP Protocol Suite, after the two initial protocols developed: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP).

In 1986, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated the development of the NSFNET which, today, provides a major backbone communication service for the Internet. With its 45 megabit per second facilities, the NSFNET carries on the order of 12 billion packets per month between the networks it links. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Energy contributed additional backbone facilities in the form of the NSINET and ESNET respectively. In Europe, major international backbones such as NORDUNET and others provide connectivity to over one hundred thousand computers on a large number of networks. Commercial network providers in the U.S. and Europe are beginning to offer Internet backbone and access support on a competitive basis to any interested parties.

"Regional" support for the Internet is provided by various consortium networks and "local" support is provided through each of the research and educational institutions. Within the United States, much of this support has come from the federal and state governments, but a considerable contribution has been made by industry. In Europe and elsewhere, support arises from cooperative international efforts and through national research organizations. During the course of its evolution, particularly after 1989, the Internet system began to integrate support for other protocol suites into its basic networking fabric. The present emphasis in the system is on multiprotocol interworking, and in particular, with the integration of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocols into the architecture.

Both public domain and commercial implementations of the roughly 100 protocols of TCP/IP protocol suite became available in the 1980's. During the early 1990's, OSI protocol implementations also became available and, by the end of 1991, the Internet has grown to include some 5,000 networks in over three dozen countries, serving over 700,000 host computers used by over 4,000,000 people.

A great deal of support for the Internet community has come from the U.S. Federal Government, since the Internet was originally part of a federally-funded research program and, subsequently, has become a major part of the U.S. research infrastructure. During the late 1980's, however, the population of Internet users and network constituents expanded internationally and began to include commercial facilities. Indeed, the bulk of the system today is made up of private networking facilities in educational and research institutions, businesses and in government organizations across the globe.

The Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Networks (CCIRN), which was organized by the U.S. Federal Networking Council (FNC) and the European Reseaux Associees pour la Recherche Europeenne (RARE), plays an important role in the coordination of plans for government- sponsored research networking. CCIRN efforts have been a stimulus for the support of international cooperation in the Internet environment.

Internet Technical Evolution

Over its fifteen year history, the Internet has functioned as a collaboration among cooperating parties. Certain key functions have been critical for its operation, not the least of which is the specification of the protocols by which the components of the system operate. These were originally developed in the DARPA research program mentioned above, but in the last five or six years, this work has been undertaken on a wider basis with support from Government agencies in many countries, industry and the academic community. The Internet Activities Board (IAB) was created in 1983 to guide the evolution of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite and to provide research advice to the Internet community.

During the course of its existence, the IAB has reorganized several times. It now has two primary components: the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Research Task Force. The former has primary responsibility for further evolution of the TCP/IP protocol suite, its standardization with the concurrence of the IAB, and the integration of other protocols into Internet operation (e.g. the Open Systems Interconnection protocols). The Internet Research Task Force continues to organize and explore advanced concepts in networking under the guidance of the Internet Activities Board and with support from various government agencies.

A secretariat has been created to manage the day-to-day function of the Internet Activities Board and Internet Engineering Task Force. IETF meets three times a year in plenary and its approximately 50 working groups convene at intermediate times by electronic mail, teleconferencing and at face-to-face meetings. The IAB meets quarterly face-to-face or by videoconference and at intervening times by telephone, electronic mail and computer-mediated conferences.

Two other functions are critical to IAB operation: publication of documents describing the Internet and the assignment and recording of various identifiers needed for protocol operation. Throughout the development of the Internet, its protocols and other aspects of its operation have been documented first in a series of documents called Internet Experiment Notes and, later, in a series of documents called Requests for Comment (RFCs). The latter were used initially to document the protocols of the first packet switching network developed by DARPA, the ARPANET, beginning in 1969, and have become the principal archive of information about the Internet. At present, the publication function is provided by an RFC editor.

The recording of identifiers is provided by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) who has delegated one part of this responsibility to an Internet Registry which acts as a central repository for Internet information and which provides central allocation of network and autonomous system identifiers, in some cases to subsidiary registries located in various countries. The Internet Registry (IR) also provides central maintenance of the Domain Name System (DNS) root database which points to subsidiary distributed DNS servers replicated throughout the Internet. The DNS distributed database is used, inter alia, to associate host and network names with their Internet addresses and is critical to the operation of the higher level TCP/IP protocols including electronic mail.

There are a number of Network Information Centers (NICs) located throughout the Internet to serve its users with documentation, guidance, advice and assistance. As the Internet continues to grow internationally, the need for high quality NIC functions increases. Although the initial community of users of the Internet were drawn from the ranks of computer science and engineering, its users now comprise a wide range of disciplines in the sciences, arts, letters, business, military and government administration.

Related Networks

In 1980-81, two other networking projects, BITNET and CSNET, were initiated. BITNET adopted the IBM RSCS protocol suite and featured direct leased line connections between participating sites. Most of the original BITNET connections linked IBM mainframes in university data centers. This rapidly changed as protocol implementations became available for other machines. From the beginning, BITNET has been multi-disciplinary in nature with users in all academic areas. It has also provided a number of unique services to its users (e.g., LISTSERV). Today, BITNET and its parallel networks in other parts of the world (e.g., EARN in Europe) have several thousand participating sites. In recent years, BITNET has established a backbone which uses the TCP/IP protocols with RSCS-based applications running above TCP.

CSNET was initially funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide networking for university, industry and government computer science research groups. CSNET used the Phonenet MMDF protocol for telephone-based electronic mail relaying and, in addition, pioneered the first use of TCP/IP over X.25 using commercial public data networks. The CSNET name server provided an early example of a white pages directory service and this software is still in use at numerous sites. At its peak, CSNET had approximately 200 participating sites and international connections to approximately fifteen countries.

In 1987, BITNET and CSNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN). In the Fall of 1991, CSNET service was discontinued having fulfilled its important early role in the provision of academic networking service. A key feature of CREN is that its operational costs are fully met through dues paid by its member organizations.

WWW - World Wide Web

The Internet, by definition is a "network of networks." That is, it is a world-wide network that links many smaller networks. In total, there are close to 70 million users of the internet, and on any given day it connects 30 million people in 50+ countries. No one "owns" the Internet. It is funded and managed locally within different countries. Having access to the Internet means being able to send and receive email, partake in interactive conferences , access information resources and network news, and transfer files.

The World Wide Web is a new subdivision of the Internet. It is an ongoing project that was begun in March 1989 by CERN, the European Laboratory for Participle Physics, as a method of transferring information more quickly to an international research community. The World Wide Web consists of computers (servers) all over the world that store information in a textual as well as a multimedia format. Their are currently over 300,000 active Web servers across the world. Each of these servers has a specific Internet address which allows users to easily locate information. Files stored on a server can be accessed in two ways. The first is simply by clicking on a link in a Web document (better known as a Web page) that points to the address of another document. The second way to locate a particular Web page is by typing the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the page in your browser (the software interface used to navigate the World Wide Web). The URL of a page is the string of characters that appears in the Location

World Wide Web pages are written in Hypertext Markup Language or HTML. This format allows text to appear in various colors and sizes when loaded by a Web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer, two software programs that navigate the World Wide Web. Most Web browsers also display graphics files which can be embedded in the HTML code of a Web page, allowing pictures to appear in various parts of a document, as well as using them as a background.

The greatest advantage of producing information in this format, is that files may be linked to one another via hyperlinks (or links) within the documents. Links usually appear in a different color than the rest of the text on a Web page and are often underlined. Navigating the Web is as simple as clicking a mouse button. Clicking the mouse on a link tells the computer to go to another Internet location and display a specific file. Also, most Web browsers allow easy navigation of the Web by utilizing "Back" and "Forward" buttons that can trace your path around the Web. Links within Web pages aren't limited to just other Web pages. They can include any type of file at all. Some of the more common types of files found on the Web are graphics files, sound files, and files containing movie clips. These files can be run by different helper applications that the Web browser associates with files of that type.

While the World Wide Web can provide information crucial to your academic and professional career, the information contained on it is not limited to such serious matters. The Web can also provide some entertaining diversions from academics. No matter what your particular hobbies or interests are, you are sure to find information on the Web pertaining to them. From music to the artworks of the Louvre to the latest breaking sports news, you are bound to find something you are interested in on the Web.

As the 21st century approaches, it seems inevitable that computer and telecommunications technology will radically transform our world in the years to come. The Internet and the World Wide Web, in particular, appear to be the protocol that will lead us into the Information Age. The social and political implications for this new technology are astounding. Never before has such an enormous amount of information been available to a limitless number of people. Already, issues of censorship and free-speech have come to take center stage, as the world scrambles to deal with the power of modern technology.

Bodies of the Web:

W3C:

the World-Wide Web Consortium. Jointly run by INRIA in Europe and MIT in the US. Members from all over the world. Members sign a three-year contract and pay a fee, for which they get a variety of benefits such as access to advance information, participation in the development of the standards and protocols and so on. Members must be organisations or companies, there is no individual membership.
http://www.w3.org/

IW3C2:

the International WWW Conference Committee. It organises the series of academic-level conferences about Web technology and development. It endorses local or regional conferences with the same goals.
http://jeeves.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Public/IW3C2/

Web Society:

A society for users of the Web as individuals. Companies and organisations are not members. This is like an automobile club.
http://www.websoc.at/

Internet Society:

Forum for issues concerning the Internet, its protocols, the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Engineering Task Force etc. Is not web-specific and not related to the W3C.
http://www.isoc.org/

It must be understood that these bodies are composed of individuals who often serve on more than one body. Therefore there is a lot of synergy and cooperation, but the goals of each body are quite well-defined, separate and not to be confused.

http://www.cern.ch/

 

In late 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a CERN computer scientist invented the World Wide Web (that you are currently using). The "Web" as it is affectionately called, was originally conceived and developed for the large high-energy physics collaborations which have a demand for instantaneous information sharing between physicists working in different universities and institutes all over the world. Now it has millions of academic and commercial users.

 

Tim together with Robert Cailliau wrote the first WWW client (a browser-editor running under NeXTStep) and the first WWW server along with most of the communications software, defining URLs, HTTP and HTML. In December 1993 WWW received the IMA award and in 1995 Tim and Robert shared the Association for Computing (ACM) Software System Award for developing the World-Wide Web with M.Andreesen and E.Bina of NCSA

An overview of the World-Wide Web

 

 

The World-Wide Web was first developed as a tool for collaboration in the high energy physics community. From there it spread rapidly to other fields, and grew to its present impressive size. As an easy way to access information, it has been a great success. But there is another side to the Web, its potential as a tool for collaboration between people. Here is some background to the early development of the World-Wide Web, a brief overview of its present state and an introduction to the concepts on which it is based.

Why from CERN?


WWW was invented and launched at CERN: how did that come about? By taking a look at the context, the associated needs and the services which were missing ten years ago, we can see why CERN was a natural place to foster such a development.

 

CERN and the High Energy Physics community


CERN is an international organisation with 20 member states, whose business is scientific research into the fundamental laws of matter. CERN builds and operates facilities for particle physicists to do their experiments. It is one of the world's largest scientific laboratories and one of the oldest European joint ventures (more information about CERN can be found there).

Science is a community effort, and depends on free access to information and exchange of ideas. In this spirit, CERN is not an isolated laboratory, but rather a focus for a extensive community that now includes about 80 countries. Around 6500 scientists use the CERN facilities, and more than half the world's high energy physicists are now involved in its experiments. This number is increasing as CERN becomes more and more a world-wide laboratory. Although these scientists typically spend some time on the CERN site, they usually work at universities and national laboratories in their home countries.

What was missing ten years ago


In spite of all this enthusiasm for electronic communication, there were many obstacles in the 1980s to the effective exchange of information. There was a great variety of computer and network systems, with hardly any common features. Users needed to understand many inconsistent and complicated systems. Different types of information had to be accessed in different ways, involving a big investment of effort by users. The result was frustration and inefficiency.

This was fertile soil for the invention of the World-Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee. Using WWW, scientists could at last access information from any source in a consistent and simple way. The launching of this revolutionary idea was made possible by the widespread adoption of the Internet around that time. This provided a de facto standard for communication between computers, on which WWW could be built. It also brought into being a "virtual community" of enthusiastic computer and communications experts, whose attitude fostered progress via the exchange of information over the Internet.

 

 

Hobbes' Internet Timeline v4.2

by

Robert H'obbes' Zakon
Internet Evangelist

 

Hobbes' Internet Timeline Copyright (c)1993-9 by Robert H Zakon. Permission is granted for use of this document in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes as long as this Copyright notice and a link to this document, at the archive listed at the end, is included. A copy of the material the Timeline appears in is requested. For commercial uses, please contact the author first. Links to this document are welcome after e-mailing the author with the document URL where the link will appear.

The author wishes to acknowledge the Internet Society for hosting this document, and the many Net folks who have contributed suggestions and helped with the author's genealogy search.

1950s

1957

USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)

1960s

1961

Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" (July)

·         First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory

1962

J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: "On-Line Man Computer Communication" (August)

·         Galactic Network concept encompassing distributed social interactions

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 Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (October)

·         First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts: "Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication

·         First meeting of the three independent packet network teams (RAND, NPL, ARPA)

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under Donald Watts Davies who coins the term packet. The NPL network, an experiment in packet-switching, used 768kbps lines

1968

PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)

Request for proposals for ARPANET sent out in August; responses received in Setptember

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)

US Senator Edward Kennedy sends a congratulatory telegram to BBN for its million-dollar ARPA contract to build the "Interfaith" Message Processor, and thanking them for their ecumenical efforts

Network Working Group (NWG), headed by Steve Crocker, loosely organized to develop host level protocols for communication over the ARPANET. (:vgc:)

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

Node 1: UCLA (30 August, hooked up 2 September)

·         Function: Network Measurement Center

·         System,OS: SDS SIGMA 7, SEX

Node 2: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (1 October)

·         Network Information Center (NIC)

·         SDS940/Genie

·         Doug Engelbart's project on "Augmentation of Human Intellect"

Node 3: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) (1 November)

·         Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics

·         IBM 360/75, OS/MVT

Node 4: University of Utah (December)

·         Graphics

·         DEC PDP-10, Tenex

First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker (7 April)

RFC 4: Network Timetable

First packets sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he tried logging into SRI. The first attempt resulted in the system crashing as the letter G of LOGIN was entered. (October 20 or 29 - being verified)

Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)


1970s

1970

First publication of the original ARPANET Host-Host protocol: C.S. Carr, S. Crocker, V.G. Cerf, "HOST-HOST Communication Protocol in the ARPA Network," in AFIPS Proceedings of SJCC (:vgc:)

First report on ARPANET at AFIPS: "Computer Network Development to Achieve Resource Sharing" (March)

ALOHAnet, the first packet radio network, developed by Norman Abramson, Univ of Hawaii, becomes operational (July) (:sk2:)

·         connected to the ARPANET in 1972

ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP), first host-to-host protocol

First cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and BBN at 56kbps. This line is later replaced by another between BBN and RAND. A second line is added between MIT and Utah

1971

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

BBN starts building IMPs using the cheaper Honeywell 316. IMPs however are limited to 4 host connections, and so BBN develops a terminal IMP (TIP) that supports up to 64 hosts (September)

Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across a distributed network. The original program was derived from two others: an intra-machine email program (SENDMSG) and an experimental file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)

1972

Ray Tomlinson (BBN) modifies email program for ARPANET where it becomes a quick hit. The @ sign was chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype for its "at" meaning (March)

Larry Roberts writes first email management program (RD) to list, selectively read, file, forward, and respond to messages (July)

International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC) at the Washington D.C. Hilton with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn. (October)

First computer-to-computer chat takes place during ICCC as psychotic PARRY (at Stanford) discusses its problems with the Doctor (at BBN)

International Network Working Group (INWG) formed in October as a result of a meeting at ICCC identifying the need for a combined effort in advancing networking technologies. Vint Cerf appointed first Chair. By 1974, INWG became IFIP WG 6.1 (:vgc:)

Louis Pouzin leads the French effort to build its own ARPANET - CYCLADES

RFC 318: Telnet specification

1973

First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England) and NORSAR (Norway)

Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet. The concept was tested on Xerox PARC's Alto computers, and the first Ethernet network called the Alto Aloha System (May) (:amk:)

Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in a San Francisco hotel lobby (:vgc:)

Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:)

RFC 454: File Transfer specification

Network Voice Protocol (NVP) specification (RFC 741) and implementation enabling conference calls over ARPAnet. (:bb1:)

SRI (NIC) begins publishing ARPANET News in March; number of ARPANET users estimated at 2,000

ARPA study shows email composing 75% of all ARPANET traffic

Christmas Day Lockup - Harvard IMP hardware problem leads it to broadcast zero-length hops to any ARPANET destination, causing all other IMPs to send their traffic to Harvard (25 December)

RFC 527: ARPAWOCKY

RFC 602: The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care

1974

Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" which specified in detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:)

BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial version of ARPANET) (:sk2:)

1975

Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)

First ARPANET mailing list, MsgGroup, is created by Steve Walker. Einar Stefferud soon took over as moderator as the list was not automated at first. A science fiction list, SF-Lovers, was to become the most popular unofficial list in the early days

John Vittal develops MSG, the first all-inclusive email program providing replying, forwarding, and filing capabilities.

Satellite links cross two oceans (to Hawaii and UK) as the first TCP tests are run over them by Stanford, BBN, and UCL

"Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:)

Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (:pds:)

1976

Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an email in February from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern

UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.

Multiprocessing Pluribus IMPs are deployed

1977

THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at Univ of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using a locally developed email system over TELENET)

RFC 733: Mail specification

Tymshare launches Tymnet

First demonstration of ARPANET/SF Bay Packet Radio Net/Atlantic SATNET operation of Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:)

1978

TCP split into TCP and IP (March)

RFC 748: TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option

1979

Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, National Science Foundation (NSF), and computer scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber).

USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under net.* hierarchy.

First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex

ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB)

Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding. Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET connection via SRI.

On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie emails the MsgGroup a suggestion of adding some emotion back into the dry text medium of email, such as -) for indicating a sentence was tongue-in-cheek. Though flamed by many at the time, emoticons became widely used


1980s

1980

ARPANET grinds to a complete halt on 27 October because of an accidentally-propagated status-message virus

First C/30-based IMP at BBN

1981

BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork"

·         Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to Yale (:feg:)

·         Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in reference to the free NJE protocols provided with the IBM systems

·         Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute information, as well as file transfers

CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of computer scientists and Univ of Delaware, Purdue Univ, Univ of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by NSF to provide networking services (especially email) to university scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:)

C/30 IMPs predominate the network; first C/30 TIP at SAC

Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by France Telecom.

True Names by Vernor Vinge (:pds:)

RFC 801: NCP/TCP Transition Plan

1982

Norway leaves network to become an Internet connection via TCP/IP over SATNET; UCL follows suit

DCA and ARPA establish the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, for ARPANET. (:vgc:)

·         This leads to one of the first definitions of an "internet" as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.

·         DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD (:vgc:)

EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email and USENET services. (:glg:)

·         original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK

Exterior Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is used for gateways between networks.

1983

Name server developed at Univ of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users to know the exact path to other systems

Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January)

No more Honeywell or Pluribus IMPs; TIPs replaced by TACs (terminal access controller)

Stuttgart and Korea get connected

Movement Information Net (MINET) started early in the year in Europe, connected to Internet in Sept

CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place

ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated with the Defense Data Network created the previous year. 68 of the 113 existing nodes went to MILNET

Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX (4.2 BSD) which includes IP networking software (:mpc:)

Networking needs switch from having a single, large time sharing computer connected to the Internet at each site, to instead connecting entire local networks

Internet Activities Board (IAB) established, replacing ICCB

EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very similar to the way BITNET works with a gateway funded by IBM

FidoNet developed by Tom Jennings

1984

Domain Name System (DNS) introduced

Number of hosts breaks 1,000

JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP

JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the Coloured Book protocols; previously SERCnet

Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Canada begins a one-year effort to network its universities. The NetNorth Network is connected to BITNET in Ithaca from Toronto (:kf1:)

Kremvax message announcing USSR connectivity to USENET

1985

Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) started

Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at USC is given responsibility for DNS root management by DCA, and SRI for DNS NIC registrations

Symbolics.com is assigned on 15 March to become the first registered domain. Other firsts: cmu.edu, purdue.edu, rice.edu, ucla.edu (April); css.gov (June); mitre.org, .uk (July)

100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to NetNorth in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:)

RFC 968: 'Twas the Night Before Start-up

1986

NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)

·         NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell).

·         This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities.

NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational (:sw1:)

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB. First IETF meeting held in January at Linkabit in San Diego

The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the auspices of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later Freenet program management assumed by the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) in 1989 (:sk2,rab:)

Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet news performance over TCP/IP.

Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.

The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987.

BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high speed links. Operational in 1987.

New England gets cut off from the Net as AT&T suffers a fiber optics cable break between Newark/NJ and White Plains/NY. Yes, all seven New England ARPANET trunk lines were in the one severed cable. Outage took place between 1:11 and 12:11 EST on 12 December

1987

NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone with Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI involvement was through an agreement with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.

UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and Usenet access. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike O'Dell

First TCP/IP Interoperability Conference (March), name changed in 1988 to INTEROP

Email link established between Germany and China using CSNET protocols, with the first message from China sent on 20 September. (:wz1:)

1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide"

Number of hosts breaks 10,000

Number of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000

1988

2 November - Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000 of the 60,000 hosts on the Internet (:ph1:)

CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) formed by DARPA in response to the needs exhibited during the Morris worm incident. The worm is the only advisory issued this year.

DoD chooses to adopt OSI and sees use of TCP/IP as an interim. US Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) defines the set of protocols to be supported by Government purchased products (:gck:)

Los Nettos network created with no federal funding, instead supported by regional members (founding: Caltech, TIS, UCLA, USC, ISI).

NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps)

CERFnet (California Education and Research Federation network) founded by Susan Estrada.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established in December with Jon Postel as its Director. Postel was also the RFC Editor and US Domain registrar for many years.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed by Jarkko Oikarinen (:zby:)

First Canadian regionals join NSFNET: ONet via Cornell, RISQ via Princeton, BCnet via Univ of Washington (:ec1:)

FidoNet gets connected to the Net, enabling the exchange of email and news (:tp1:)

The first multicast tunnel is established between Stanford and BBN in the Summer of 1988.

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Canada (CA), Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), France (FR), Iceland (IS), Norway (NO), Sweden (SE)

1989

Number of hosts breaks 100,000

RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) formed (by European service providers) to ensure the necessary administrative and technical coordination to allow the operation of the pan-European IP Network. (:glg:)

First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet: MCI Mail through the Corporation for the National Research Initiative (CNRI), and Compuserve through Ohio State Univ (:jg1,ph1:)

Corporation for Research and Education Networking (CREN) is formed by merging CSNET into BITNET (August)

AARNET - Australian Academic Research Network - set up by AVCC and CSIRO; introduced into service the following year (:gmc:)

Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll tells the real-life tale of a German cracker group who infiltrated numerous US facilities

UCLA sponsors the Act One symposium to celebrate ARPANET's 20th anniversary and its decomissioning (August)

RFC 1121: Act One - The Poems

RFC 1097: TELNET SUBLIMINAL-MESSAGE Option

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Australia (AU), Germany (DE), Israel (IL), Italy (IT), Japan (JP), Mexico (MX), Netherlands (NL), New Zealand (NZ), Puerto Rico (PR), United Kingdom (UK)


1990s

1990

ARPANET ceases to exist

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is founded by Mitch Kapor

Archie released by Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan at McGill

Hytelnet released by Peter Scott (Univ of Saskatchewan)

The World comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the first commercial provider of Internet dial-up access

ISO Development Environment (ISODE) developed to provide an approach for OSI migration for the DoD. ISODE software allows OSI application to operate over TCP/IP (:gck:)

CA*net formed by 10 regional networks as national Canadian backbone with direct connection to NSFNET (:ec1:)

The first remotely operated machine to be hooked up to the Internet, the Internet Toaster by John Romkey, (controlled via SNMP) makes its debut at Interop. Pictures: Internode, Invisible

RFC 1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers

RFC 1178: Choosing a Name for Your Computer

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Argentina (AR), Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Brazil (BR), Chile (CL), Greece (GR), India (IN), Ireland (IE), Korea (KR), Spain (ES), Switzerland (CH)

1991

Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association, Inc. formed by General Atomics (CERFnet), Performance Systems International, Inc. (PSInet), and UUNET Technologies, Inc. (AlterNet), after NSF lifts restrictions on the commercial use of the Net (March) (:glg:)

Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), invented by Brewster Kahle, released by Thinking Machines Corporation

Gopher released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the Univ of Minnessota

World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer (:pb1:)

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) released by Philip Zimmerman (:ad1:)

US High Performance Computing Act (Gore 1) establishes the National Research and Education Network (NREN)

NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)

NSFNET traffic passes 1 trillion bytes/month and 10 billion packets/month

Defense Data Network NIC contract awarded by DISA to Government Systems Inc. who takes over from SRI in May

Start of JANET IP Service (JIPS) which signalled the changeover from Coloured Book software to TCP/IP within the UK academic network. IP was initially 'tunneled' within X.25. (:gst:)

RFC 1216: Gigabit Network Economics and Paradigm Shifts

RFC 1217: Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR)

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Croatia (HR), Czech Republic (CZ), Hong Kong (HK), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Singapore (SG), South Africa (ZA), Taiwan (TW), Tunisia (TN)

1992

Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered (January)

IAB reconstituted as the Internet Architecture Board and becomes part of the Internet Society

Number of hosts breaks 1,000,000

First MBONE audio multicast (March) and video multicast (November)

RIPE Network Coordination Center (NCC) created in April to provide address registration and coordination services to the European Internet community (:dk1:)

Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by Univ of Nevada

World Bank comes on-line

The term "surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly (:jap:)

Zen and the Art of the Internet is published by Brendan Kehoe (:jap:)

Internet Hunt started by Rick Gates

RFC 1300: Remembrances of Things Past

RFC 1313: Today's Programming for KRFC AM 1313 - Internet Talk Radio

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Antarctica (AQ), Cameroon (CM), Cyprus (CY), Ecuador (EC), Estonia (EE), Kuwait (KW), Latvia (LV), Luxembourg (LU), Malaysia (MY), Slovakia (SK), Slovenia (SI), Thailand (TH), Venezuela (VE)

1993

InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: (:sc1:)

·         directory and database services (AT&T)

·         registration services (Network Solutions Inc.)

·         information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)

US White House comes on-line (http://www.whitehouse.gov/):

·         President Bill Clinton: president@whitehouse.gov

·         Vice-President Al Gore: vice-president@whitehouse.gov

Worms of a new kind find their way around the Net - WWW Worms (W4), joined by Spiders, Wanderers, Crawlers, and Snakes ...

Internet Talk Radio begins broadcasting (:sk2:)

United Nations (UN) comes on-line (:vgc:)

US National Information Infrastructure Act

Businesses and media begin taking notice of the Internet

InterCon International KK (IIKK) provides Japan's first commercial Internet connection in September. TWICS, though an IIKK leased line, begins offering dial-up accounts the following month (:tb1:)

Mosaic takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634% annual growth rate of service traffic. Gopher's growth is 997%.

RFC 1437: The Extension of MIME Content-Types to a New Medium

RFC 1438: IETF Statements of Boredom (SOBs)

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Bulgaria (BG), Costa Rica (CR), Egypt (EG), Fiji (FJ), Ghana (GH), Guam (GU), Indonesia (ID), Kazakhstan (KZ), Kenya (KE), Liechtenstein (LI), Peru (PE), Romania (RO), Russian Federation (RU), Turkey (TR), Ukraine (UA), UAE (AE), US Virgin Islands (VI)

1994

ARPANET/Internet celebrates 25th anniversary

Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet (Lexington and Cambridge, Mass., USA)

US Senate and House provide information servers

Shopping malls arrive on the Internet

First cyberstation, RT-FM, broadcasts from Interop in Las Vegas

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that GOSIP should incorporate TCP/IP and drop the "OSI-only" requirement (:gck:)

Arizona law firm of Canter & Siegel "spams" the Internet with email advertising green card lottery services; Net citizens flame back

NSFNET traffic passes 10 trillion bytes/month

Yes, it's true - you can now order pizza from the Hut online

WWW edges out telnet to become 2nd most popular service on the Net (behind ftp-data) based on % of packets and bytes traffic distribution on NSFNET

Japanese Prime Minister on-line (http://www.kantei.go.jp/)

UK's HM Treasury on-line (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/)

New Zealand's Info Tech Prime Minister on-line (http://www.govt.nz/)

First Virtual, the first cyberbank, open up for business

Radio stations start rockin' (rebroadcasting) round the clock on the Net: WXYC at Univ of NC, WJHK at Univ of KS-Lawrence, KUGS at Western WA Univ

Trans-European Research and Education Network Association (TERENA) is formed by the merger of RARE and EARN, with representatives from 38 countries as well as CERN and ECMWF. TERENA's aim is to "promote and participate in the development of a high quality international information and telecommunications infrastructure for the benefit of research and education" (October)

After noticing that many network software vendors used domain.com in their documentation examples, Bill Woodcock and Jon Postel register the domain. Sure enough, after looking at the domain access logs, it was evident that many users were using the example domain in configuring their applications.

RFC 1605: SONET to Sonnet Translation

RFC 1606: A Historical Perspective On The Usage Of IP Version 9

RFC 1607: A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY

Countries connecting to NSFNET: Algeria (DZ), Armenia (AM), Bermuda (BM), Burkina Faso (BF), China (CN), Colombia (CO), Jamaica (JM), Jordan (JO), Lebanon (LB), Lithuania (LT), Macau (MO), Morocco (MA), New Caledonia, Nicaragua (NI), Niger (NE), Panama (PA), Philippines (PH), Senegal (SN), Sri Lanka (LK), Swaziland (SZ), Uruguay (UY), Uzbekistan (UZ)

Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, uk, gov, de, ca, mil, au, org, net

1995

NSFNET reverts back to a research network. Main US backbone traffic now routed through interconnected network providers

The new NSFNET is born as NSF establishes the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) linking super-computing centers: NCAR, NCSA, SDSC, CTC, PSC

Hong Kong police disconnect all but 1 of the colony's Internet providers in search of a hacker. 10,000 people are left without Net access. (:api:)

Sun launches JAVA on May 23

RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time

Radio HK, the first commercial 24 hr., Internet-only radio station starts broadcasting

WWW surpasses ftp-data in March as the service with greatest traffic on NSFNet based on packet count, and in April based on byte count

Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access

Thousands in Minneapolis-St. Paul (USA) lose Net access after transients start a bonfire under a bridge at the Univ of MN causing fiber-optic cables to melt (30 July)

A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading the pack with the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)

Registration of domain names is no longer free. Beginning 14 September, a $50 annual fee has been imposed, which up until now was subsidized by NSF. NSF continues to pay for .edu registration, and on an interim basis for .gov

The Vatican comes on-line (http://www.vatican.va/)

The Canadian Government comes on-line (http://canada.gc.ca/)

The first official Internet wiretap was successful in helping the Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) apprehend three individuals who were illegally manufacturing and selling cell phone cloning equipment and electronic devices

Operation Home Front connects, for the first time, soldiers in the field with their families back home via the Internet.

Richard White becomes the first person to be declared a munition, under the USA's arms export control laws, because of an RSA file security encryption program tattooed on his arm (:wired496:)

RFC 1882: The 12-Days of Technology Before Christmas

Country domains registered: Ethiopia (ET), Cote d'Ivoire (CI), Cook Islands (CK) Cayman Islands (KY), Anguilla (AI), Gibraltar (GI), Vatican (VA), Kiribati (KI), Kyrgyzstan (KG), Madagascar (MG), Mauritius (MU), Micronesia (FM), Monaco (MC), Mongolia (MN), Nepal (NP), Nigeria (NG), Western Samoa (WS), San Marino (SM), Tanzania (TZ), Tonga (TO), Uganda (UG), Vanuatu (VU)

Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, gov, mil, org, de, uk, ca, au

Technologies of the Year: WWW, Search engines

Emerging Technologies: Mobile code (JAVA, JAVAscript), Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools

1996

Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years)

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat, and Phillipine President Fidel Rhamos meet for ten minutes in an online interactive chat session on 17 January.

The controversial US Communications Decency Act (CDA) becomes law in the US in order to prohibit distribution of indecent materials over the Net. A few months later a three-judge panel imposes an injunction against its enforcement. Supreme Court unanimously rules most of it unconstitutional in 1997.

9,272 organizations find themselves unlisted after the InterNIC drops their name service as a result of not having paid their domain name fee

Various ISPs suffer extended service outages, bringing into question whether they will be able to handle the growing number of users. AOL (19 hours), Netcom (13 hours), AT&T WorldNet (28 hours - email only)

Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for US$15,000

New Yorks' Public Access Networks Corp (PANIX) is shut down after repeated SYN attacks by a cracker using methods outlined in a hacker magazine (2600)

MCI upgrades Internet backbone adding ~13,000 ports, bringing the effective speed from 155Mbps to 622Mbps.

The Internet Ad Hoc Committee announces plans to add 7 new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD): .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info, .nom. The IAHC plan also calls for a competing group of domain registrars worldwide.

A malicious cancelbot is released on USENET wiping out more than 25,000 messages

The WWW browser war, fought primarily between Netscape and Microsoft, has rushed in a new age in software development, whereby new releases are made quarterly with the help of Internet users eager to test upcoming (beta) versions.

RFC 1925: The Twelve Networking Truths

Restrictions on Internet use around the world:

·         China: requires users and ISPs to register with the police

·         Germany: cuts off access to some newsgroups carried on Compuserve

·         Saudi Arabia: confines Internet access to universities and hospitals

·         Singapore: requires political and religious content providers to register with the state

·         New Zealand: classifies computer disks as "publications" that can be censored and seized

·         source: Human Rights Watch

Country domains registered: Qatar (QA), Central African Republic (CF), Oman (OM), Norfolk Island (NF), Tuvalu (TV), French Polynesia (PF), Syria (SY), Aruba (AW), Cambodia (KH), French Guiana (GF), Eritrea (ER), Cape Verde (CV), Burundi (BI), Benin (BJ) Bosnia-Hercegovina (BA), Andorra (AD), Guadeloupe (GP), Guernsey (GG), Isle of Man (IM), Jersey (JE), Lao (LA), Maldives (MV), Marshall Islands (MH), Mauritania (MR), Northern Mariana Islands (MP), Rwanda (RW), Togo (TG), Yemen (YE), Zaire (ZR)

Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, uk, de, jp, us, mil, ca, au

Hacks of the Year: US Dept of Justice (17 Aug), CIA (19 Sep), Air Force (29 Dec), UK Labour Party (6 Dec)

Technologies of the Year: Search engines, JAVA, Internet Phone

Emerging Technologies: Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools, Internet appliance (Network Computer)

1997

2000th RFC: "Internet Official Protocol Standards"

71,618 mailing lists registered at Liszt, a mailing list directory

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is established to handle administration and registration of IP numbers to the geographical areas currently handled by Network Solutions (InterNIC), starting March 1998.

CA*net II launched in June to provide Canada's next generation Internet using ATM/SONET

In protest of the DNS monopoly, AlterNIC's owner, Eugene Kashpureff, hacks DNS so users going to www.internic.net end up at www.alternic.net

Domain name business.com sold for US$150,000

Early in the morning of 17 July, human error at Network Solutions causes the DNS table for .com and .net domains to become corrupted, making millions of systems unreachable.

Longest hostname registered with InterNIC: CHALLENGER.MED.SYNAPSE.UAH.UALBERTA.CA

101,803 Name Servers in whois database

RFC 2100: The Naming of Hosts

Country domains registered: Falkland Islands (FK), East Timor (TP), R of Congo (CG), Christmas Island (CX), Gambia (GM), Guinea-Bissau (GW), Haiti (HT), Iraq (IQ), Lybia (LY), Malawi (MW), Martinique (MQ), Montserrat (MS), Myanmar (MM), French Reunion Island (RE), Seychelles (SC), Sierra Leone (SL), Somalia (SO), Sudan (SD), Tajkistan (TJ), Turkmenistan (TM), Turks and Caicos Islands (TC), British Virgin Islands (VG), Heard and McDonald Islands (HM), French Southern Territories (TF), British Indian Ocean Territory (IO), Scalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (SJ), St Pierre and Miquelon (PM), St Helena (SH), South Georgia/Sandwich Islands (GS), Sao Tome and Principe (ST), Ascension Island (AC), Tajikstan (TJ), US Minor Outlying Islands (UM), Mayotte (YT), Wallis and Futuna Islands (WF), Tokelau Islands (TK), Chad Republic (TD), Afghanistan (AF), Cocos Island (CC), Bouvet Island (BV), Liberia (LR), American Samoa (AS), Niue (NU), Equatorial New Guinea (GQ), Bhutan (BT), Pitcairn Island (PN), Palau (PW), DR of Congo (CD),

Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, jp, uk, de, us, au, ca, mil

Hacks of the Year: Indonesian Govt (19 Jan, 10 Feb, 24 Apr, 30 Jun, 22 Nov), NASA (5 Mar), UK Conservative Party (27 Apr), Spice Girls (14 Nov)

Technologies of the Year: Push, Multicasting

Emerging Technologies: Push, Streaming Media [:twc:]

1998

Hobbes' Internet Timeline is released as RFC 2235 & FYI 32

US Depart of Commerce (DoC) releases the Green Paper outlining its plan to privatize DNS on 30 January. This is followed up by a White Paper on June 5

La Fête de l'Internet, a country-wide Internet fest, is held in France 20-21 March

Web size estimates range between 275 (Digital) and 320 (NEC) million pages for 1Q

Companies flock to the Turkmenistan NIC in order to register their name under the .tm domain, the English abbreviation for trademark

Internet users get to be judges in a performace by 12 world champion ice skaters on 27 March, marking the first time a television sport show's outcome is determined by its viewers.

Network Solutions registers its 2 millionth domain on 4 May

Electronic postal stamps become a reality, with the US Postal Service allowing stamps to be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.

Canada kicks off CA*net 3, the first national optical internet

CDA II and a ban on Net taxes are signed into US law (21 October)

ABCNews.com accidentally posts test US election returns one day early (2 November)

Indian ISP market is deregulated in November causing a rush for ISP operation licenses

US DoC enters into an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers (ICANN) to establish a process for transitioning DNS from US Government management to industry (25 November)

San Francisco sites without off-city mirrors go offline as the city blacks out on 8 December

Chinese government puts Lin Hai on trial for "inciting the overthrow of state power" for providing 30,000 email addresses to a US Internet magazine (December) [ He is later sentenced to two years in jail ]

French Internet users give up their access on 13 December to boycott France Telecom's local phone charges (which are in addition to the ISP charge)

Open source software comes of age

RFC 2321: RITA -- The Reliable Internetwork Troubleshooting Agent

RFC 2322: Management of IP numbers by peg-dhcp

RFC 2323: IETF Identification and Security Guidelines

RFC 2324: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)

Country domains registered: Nauru (NR), Comoros (KM)

Bandwidth Generators: Winter Olympics (Feb), World Cup (Jun-Jul), Starr Report (11 Sep), Glenn space launch

Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, net, edu, mil, jp, us, uk ,de, ca, au

Hacks of the Year: US Dept of Commerce (20 Feb), New York Times (13 Sep), China Society for Human Rights Studies (26 Oct), UNICEF (7 Jan)

Technologies of the Year: E-Commerce, E-Auctions, Portals

Emerging Technologies: E-Trade, XML, Intrusion Detection

1999

Internet access becomes available to the Saudi Arabian public in January

First Internet Bank of Indiana, the first full-service bank available only on the Net, opens for business on 22 February

IBM becomes the first Corporate partner to be approved for Internet2 access

European Parliament proposes banning the caching of Web pages by ISPs

The Internet Fiesta kicks off in March across Europe, building on the success of La Fête de l'Internet held in 1998

US State Court rules that domain names are property that may be garnished

MCI/Worldcom, the vBNS provider for NSF, begins upgrading the US backbone to 2.5GBps

A forged Web page made to look like a Bloomberg financial news story raised shares of a small technology company by 31% on 7 April.

ICANN announces the five testbed registrars for the competitive Shared Registry System on 21 April: AOL, CORE, France Telecom/Oléane, Melbourne IT, Register.com. 29 additional post-testbed registrars are also selected on 21 April, followed by 8 on 25 May, 15 on 6 July, and 7 on 11 August. The testbed, originally scheduled to last until 24 June, is extended until 10 September (first registrar - Register.com - does not come online until 7 June).

First large-scale Cyberwar takes place simulatenously with the war in Serbia/Kosovo

Abilene, the Internet2 network, reaches across the Atlantic and connects to NORDUnet and SURFnet

The Web becomes the focal point of British politics as a list of MI6 agents is released on a UK Web site. Though forced to remove the list from the site, it was too late as the list had already been replicated across the Net. (15 May)

SETI@Home project launches 17 May. The first attempt at making use of the large number of computers hooked to the Net that are constantly idle

Activists Net-wide target the world's financial centers on 18 June, timed to concincide with the G8 Summit. Little actual impact is reported.

ISOC approves the formation of the Internet Societal Task Force (ISTF). Vint Cerf serves as first chair

Free computers are all the rage (as long as you sign a long term contract for Net service)

RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service

RFC 2550: Y10K and Beyond

RFC 2551: The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III

RFC 2555: 30 Years of RFCs

Top 10 TLDs by Host #: com, net, edu, jp, uk, mil, us, de, ca, au

Hacks of the Year: Star Wars (8 Jan), .tp (Jan), USIA (23 Jan), E-Bay (13 Mar), US Senate (27 May), NSI (2 Jul), Paraguay Gov't (20 Jul), AntiOnline (5 Aug)

Technologies of the Year: E-Trade, Online Banking

Virii of the Year: Melissa (March), ExploreZip (June)