Thanks to recent confirmation that your every online move is being monitored, trust in the internet seems like it’s at an all-time low. In fact, as we can see from an article published in 1973, we were acutely aware that the future of our interconnected world depended on confidence in the privacy and security of the network before it even existed.
     |
"Once upon a time computers were for thinking… That’s no longer true. Computers are for communicating now, and networks allowed that to happen."
| |
Imagine a world where nearly every book ever published could be delivered to you electronically in the blink of an eye. Imagine a world where all of your banking is done without having to visit a bank teller. Imagine a world where paper doesn’t need to be shuttled around to exchange ideas. I know, I know, I’m basically describing right now. But in the year 1972, when the ARPANET (the precursor to our modern internet) was just beginning to take its first baby steps, these ideas were all a fantasy. In the minds of these men, specifically.
| |
Once upon a time, you could draw a map of the known Internet. Here’s what the world of networked computers looked like in 1977 when ARPANET was still just a huge government-funded science project. It’s actually incredible that the network proliferated this much in the eight years after the first four-node network was established back in 1969.
| |
Email is something many of us have only been using for the past 20 years, but its roots go back much much further than that. The earliest traces of email even date back to the 1960s. And according to Wired, computer engineer Ray Tomlinson was responsible for many of email’s earliest innovations, including the use of @ in email addresses. More »
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
