The 20th Anniversary of the Internet

Ross Finlayson writes "In a message posted to the IETF general mailing list, Bob Braden reminds us that, on January 1st, 2003, 20 years will have passed since "the most logical date of origin of the Internet [...] when the ARPANET officially switched from the NCP protocol to TCP/IP". And the rest is history..."

Comments

13th Post!

[kmweber]

Woo-hoo!

Oh let me get my popcorn!

[reaper20]

Too bad that the last five years have seen the decline of the original intent of the internet to degrade to a cesspool of spam, RIAA/MPAA crap, popups, overmarketization, the ZD "stupidity factor" and other pure bullshit that we put up with every day.

Anyone else harking for the days of gopher and html 3.2? Sure, the "market capitilization" was horrible, but you know what, NNTP was actually useful back then. No google? Some industrous person on would point you to the right place, as a common courtesy. Sharing of knowledge. Ahhhh ... the good old days.

Now we're deluged with a flash-crippled web with no regards to any kind of standards, where any moron can masquerade as a "developer" and make a ton of money for being an idiot. yeah, I may sound stupid in today's context, but someone like Alan Ralsky was impossible back in the day.

Bring back the meritocracy of the internet - you remember? The place where you were entitled to an opinion if you were intelligent enough to actually learn and connect.

Discriminatory? Hell yes, mod me down. Being more intelligent than the average Joe never hurt anyone....

Re:Oh let me get my popcorn!

[evilviper]

Now we're deluged with a flash-crippled web with no regards to any kind of standards

I'm not! If I come across a 'crippled' web-site, I won't use it, nor will I go there again.

YOU make the web. So, next time you feel like complaining about how terrible flash is, uninstall it from your computer instead. Next time you get annoyed by a pop-up, (of if you, like myself, have the slightest concern for privacy and security) disable javascript and be done with it.

If you don't like distracting animations, disable GIF animations, and you won't be bothered again.

For all your complaining, you haven't accomplished anything. I was annoyed like you by many MANY things on the web... but instead of complaining on slashdot, I installed Privoxy (before it was even under that name) and wrote up a few regex filters that eliminate almost every annoyance I've ever come across. CmdrTaco (and most other webmasters) may not be smart enough to dump the white backgrounds (in favor of any other color that you can look at without feeling like your eyes are being crushed) but that doesn't mean I have to be forced to look look at it that way.

Re:Oh let me get my popcorn!

[JaredOfEuropa]

"Anyone else harking for the days of gopher and html?"

The Internet of those days to me is more or less the same as today's Internet: a means of data transport. For what it's worth, that transport now reaches much more people than it did way back when, and at greater speeds also. Don't fall into that delusion that many ISP's suffer from: that they somehow have to offer content as well as transport.

"Bring back the meritocracy of the internet - you remember? The place where you were entitled to an opinion if you were intelligent enough to actually learn and connect."

The great achievement of the Internet is that it has given a voice (or medium or whatever) to whomever needs one. Sure, that includes the crackpots, spammers, lousy web designers, Flash users, and so on and so forth. Internet is no longer the plaything of the elite at universities and defense organisations, as it was 10 years ago. As a result, there is more worthwhile stuff on the Internet than ever there was in the past, but there is a corresponding increase in crap, which one has to sort through to get to the meat. But the crap goes hand in hand with the good stuff... culling the crap would probably mean curtailing essential freedoms that leads to the good stuff.

The next 20 years

[buttahead]

So who can guess where we will be 20 years from now? Wide scale broadband using IPv6? Small scale super broadband using an IP replacement?

What's going on with the Internet v2.0? Will it also be spun into a commercial media frenzy?

Anyone care to venture some guesses? Now taking bets; I'm sure you will be able to track me down 2 decades from now.

Funny.

[mindstrm]

If you mean the web.. fine.

Nowadays though..
you can route your PBX through a VOIP provider and get really cool phone service, and rates, from anywhere you can get bandwidth.
We trade entire movies online like it ain't no big thing.
Same for music.

Videoconferencing. You may not have seen high quality video conferencing via the internet.. but I sure have.. and it is indeed impressive.

Education. It's easier than ever to look up any kind of information now than ever before.. increased advertising yes.. but also increased information. Howstuffworks.com and it's type are awesome learning tools, for all ages.

Open forums, debates, person info like blogs, are huge now. Don't care? Maybe not.. but it's fairly easy to see what othe rpeople really think. Go back to reading magazines if you want... think some guy who failed highschool, has an iq of 40.. you don't want his opinion on something? Don't want to know what he thinks? You should, because he votes.

Etc.

Re:some people value fact over humour

[kraksmoka]

i'm a dem sympathizer (i would sooner admit being a miami dolphins fan too), and have voted more dems than backwards racists party.

agnostic reply below

al did do alot on the legislative side. just like (this gets little recognition) Dan Quayle was the legislative sponsor (and fought hard for i'll add) the Patriot missile as a senator. he does deserve credit for seeing the future way back then . . . .

even tho i voted Gore in y2k, i still think the humor (and a better spelling too i might add) is really funny! didn't you people see SNL couple weeks back?? i'm sure even Al likes it at this point.

what are all you Lusers doing debating this old issue on /. on New Years EVE fur gosh sakes??????

t - 01:07 remaining in year.

i'm smokin sum good stuff and going out. laters everyone, have fun

Re:OMFG!!! TERRORIST ATTACK IN NYC!

[HeyYou82]

this is not funny. in fact, i read that, and my heart dropped. i wish i had some mod points. get a friggin life.

*toasts*

[kien]

Here's to free-thinkers...may they continue to retain the right to question things.

Here's to academics...may they continue their research.

Here's to the hacker ethic which played a large part in the creation of the Net.

And here's to all of you /. people, whether friend, foe, or freak; you make me think.

Happy New Year!

--K.

Well, I hate to say it, but. . .

[kfg]

that's generally a sign of maturation of any technology. It happens. There's only so much "new" to go around, and then you've used it up.

You can see signs of it throughtout the entire computer industry too. They're starting to sell chrome like it's a technological feature. They only have to do that when they've run out of *actual* new technological features to sell. "Buy our OS, it's got prettier widgets and shit."

There was that "smell-O-vision" thingy that someone said they were working on a while ago. Man, just wait to you get hit with a "popup" perfume ad with that sucker. Maybe nothing new is a Good Thing?

KFG

learn English

[DABANSHEE]

I took the initiative in creating the Internet

That has 2 interprestations:

1/ I took the initiative by creating the internet

2/ The initiative I took led to the creation of the internet.

Obviously he ment interpretation 2, as, if he meant interpretation 1 he would have just said it. The fact is the difference between in & by means alot, even though those definitions overlap.