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The Internet At 35

Anonymous writes "CNN has a story on the 35th anniversary of the Internet, overviewing its past and the future. According to the article the history began on 'September 2, 1969, as bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two computers.' So, happy birthday, the Internet!"

84 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. editors? by ack154 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So which is it? 25? or 35? Come on... :p

    1. Re:editors? by Whyte · · Score: 5, Funny

      The real news is that this is actually the year 1994!

      --
      -- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
    2. Re:editors? by Quasar1999 · · Score: 5, Funny

      1969... it's 2004... math... err... ummm... hold on, let me get a calculator for you... err... let's see... what's the thingy I gotta do? Add??? No... subtract... ah... there we go... 25!!!

      --

      ---
      Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
    3. Re:editors? by adrianbaugh · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's actually 1994 and the editors are using a brand-spanking-new Intel Pentium (ding-ding ding-DING!) chip to do their math. Oh, wait...

      --
      "'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
      - JRR Tolkien.
    4. Re:editors? by UserGoogol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, the Internet is 21. That's when The Network was officially switched over to TCP/IP.

      --
      "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
    5. Re:editors? by tunabomber · · Score: 5, Funny

      C'mon- give the Internet a break- it's just going through a little bit of denial.

      Don't worry, the Internet, it's OK to be 35- you're a hot technology trend! You know what they say about the lifetime of those! The Internet, why are you sobbing? Come back!

      --

      pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
    6. Re:editors? by suwain_2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I come up with -35.

      Seems like a substantial difference. Maybe it's just round-off errors or something.

      --
      ________________________________________________
      suwain_2 :: quality slashdot p
    7. Re:editors? by suwain_2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Does that mean the Internet can drink now?

      --
      ________________________________________________
      suwain_2 :: quality slashdot p
    8. Re:editors? by britneys+9th+husband · · Score: 3, Funny

      Really? I came up with 65,501.

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      Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
    9. Re:editors? by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Informative
      What did it use before that?

      Can't remember the exact details, but there were special computers designed to handle the networking, called Interface Message Processors (IMPs). So you had the actual ARPAnet host, IMP machine, more than some dedicated cabling between them, another IMP, and another host.

      TCP/IP, as far as I remember, was more like formal spec of what was going on between IMPs, and hosts and IMPs - adapted so that the actual networking hardware didn't matter that much.

  2. Haha by pHatidic · · Score: 5, Funny

    35 Years Ago Today: Frist PSOT!!!1

    1. Re:Haha by nEoN+nOoDlE · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nah, things were a lot more civilized on the internet back then... it went more like

      Geek 1: Pip, pip! I do believe I have the first post!
      Geek 2: Oh drat! You beat me to it, ol' chap!
      Geek 1: Cheerio!

      --
      Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
  3. Over the hill by cloudscout · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The Internet At 25"... but it started in 1969. I think this "Internet" is a lot like some 35 year old guys I've seen in various chatrooms trying to convince all of the co-eds that they're really 25.

  4. I motion that... by EmperorKagato · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the delay in final submission for articles should be moved from 10 minutes to 20 minutes. I submit the mistakes to the editor on duty, but unfortunately, I was too late. :(

    --
    ----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
    1. Re:I motion that... by zdzichu · · Score: 5, Funny

      What you are talking about? Increasing delay? There is already 10 years delay on this article!

      --
      :wq
    2. Re:I motion that... by Guppy06 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why? So Taco can make extra-sure that the story he's posting is, in fact, a dupe?

      (What, you honestly think they were all accidental?)

  5. Memories.... by JoeLinux · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...Ah yes, the internet. Putting porn and pipebomb instructions in the hands of 13-year olds since September 3rd, 1969...

    1. Re:Memories.... by pHatidic · · Score: 5, Funny

      Remember ten years ago when the porno used to load line by line? I remember being 13ish when my friend linked me to some surprise.jpg and it loaded line by line for like 5 minutes and then at the bottom the girl had a penis. What the fuck. I should really sue AOL for scarring me for life.

    2. Re:Memories.... by emc · · Score: 5, Funny

      What the fuck. I should really sue AOL for scarring me for life.

      I have always thought that all non-AOL users should get to sue AOL for bringing all of these 'users' onto the Internet in the first place.

    3. Re:Memories.... by Rorschach1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, that brings back memories. For us, the hard part was getting fake accounts on the local adult BBSes, when they all required validation calls. I figured out a social engineering solution to that problem - just put down a totally unpronounceable foreign name, and the sysops would never call to validate for fear of mispronouncing the user's name.

      Then it was just a matter of dialing up at 2400 baud and batch downloading everything we could find. Of course, this was using Telix in DOS, so to actually see anything in real-time we'd use a TSR program (ShowGIF?) that'd decode the image as it was written to disk. We'd stare at the image as it came across line by line, and try to figure out what body parts we were looking at.

      "Is that an elbow?" "No, I think it's a knee." "No, no, it's the back of someone's neck..." "No it's not, it's a... oh, God! Cancel!! Hit cancel!! My eyes!"

      Great fun, and really challenging when you've got four or more people in an unusual configuration in the picture.

      Of course, the 40 meg hard drive didn't leave much room for pr0n archives. We had to start offloading it to 200 meg QIC tapes at some point. Ah, the good old days.

    4. Re:Memories.... by Colonel+Cholling · · Score: 5, Funny

      You young whipper-snappers had it easy. I used to have to spend 3 hours feeding punched cards into the mainframe just to get the front panel LEDs to light up in the shape of a nekkid lady.

      --

      I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
  6. First Data Transmitted on the Internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    1) 1 x 1 pixel of goatse.cx 2) Two sentence SPAM email trying to get investors into something called TCP/IP 3) The famous "Nixon" worm of '69. Crippled 3 machines.

  7. I get the feeling... by msgregory@earthlink. · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...that the largest discussion of the difference between 25 and 35 in the history of the internet is about to ensue.

  8. The Internet... by kjones692 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ah, the Internet. Designed so that even in the event of nuclear war, our military leaders would still be able to access pornography.

    --

    Love the Third Amendment?
  9. 35 years going on 25 by Aexia · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is the Internet going through a mid-life crisis or something? First it found it out that Al Gore wasn't his real father; it was actually adopted by the US government. Then everyone blamed it for the tanking economy.

    And now it's just bought a Porsche and is going in for botox treatments.

  10. Silly Mainstream News... by FlipmodePlaya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The focus of the article seems to be security issues of the Internet. Talk of virusses, spam and whatnot. They even qute a guy saying he wishes security had been a priority when it was first invented. Shouldn't it be noted these issues are in software, not the hardware infastructure or protocal of the Internet?

    1. Re:Silly Mainstream News... by 3l1za · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The hardware infrastructure != the protocol of the Internet. The protocol of the internet is very much implemented in software. And, yes, the ease in ability of spoofing an Internet Protocol address is a security issue with the protocol, not just with a particular software implementation of that protocol.

      Ditto there are issues with the various routing protocols, which are issues not just with any particular implementation of that protocol but with the protocol itself.

    2. Re:Silly Mainstream News... by 3l1za · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To say nothing of weaknesses in ICMP, TCP, etc...

      Ever hear of the TCP slow start attack?

      Wonder why ping flooding is possible (hint ICMP goes directly over IP not via TCP which would prohibit this particular attack in its most common form)?

      They shouldn't beat themselves up too hard, though; heck, even SSL v 1.0 was a total and complete mess (but nothing compared to some other modern-day-designed doozies) and that was designed much later than the initial Internet was... and hence with a much greater understanding of the adversarial nature of it.

  11. If the internet was a girl. by eBayDoug · · Score: 5, Funny

    It would forever be 29 years old.

    --
    Learn About Outsourcing. http://www.pioutsource.com
    1. Re:If the internet was a girl. by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Funny

      And will spend millions of dollars on "age defying switches"

  12. Lighten up by outriding9800 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think the editors are under enough stress. I mean they first have to make sure the article wasnt posted 3 times before and do a spell check. Now you all want them to check basic math. gessh give them a break

  13. The ARPAnet, not quite the Internet by isdnip · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, let's not let the title get too carried away on accuracy, even disregarding its subtraction error. In 1969, the prototype ARPAnet started up. It used NCP (TCP/IP came later). It didn't become the "Internet" until there were multiple interconnected networks, and that was not until the early 1980s, after the TCP/IP transition (which was completed in 1983). There were multiple networks once the more production-oriented MILNET split off of the more research-y ARPAnet. And after that came CSnet and all sorts of others.

    But yes, it was in many ways better in the early days (pre-1993), because there was no spam, or for that matter any other advertising. Although Google and the like do sort of make up for it.

    1. Re:The ARPAnet, not quite the Internet by aardwolf204 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I know I cant be the only one that misses dialing into a local BBS to check FidoNET, play some door games, chat with locals in the message boards. And whenever I had a problem I could actually ring the SysOp and actually break into chat with a real human. Those were the days. I used to pick up the local BBS newsletter for free at the supermarket. The coolest BBSs were multi node and you could "chat" with other users. It was like TTY on unix but with beautiful ANSI art. Some of the ASCII and ANSI art the came out of the BBS scene was truly beautiful. Its amazing what one can do with 255 characters and 16 colors.

      Then one day one of the bigger BBSs in town, a 10 node WildCat board got Lynx and things started to change.

      I remember getting "online" in '94, hitting lycos to see what the fuss was about and feeling totally alone, like a little kid in a huge subway terminal full of hundreds of people, yet no one talking. And by then USENET was already just a place to get binaries.

      Well, at least theres a community on slashdot, where else am I going to get my 1. Nat Portman 2. Hot Gritz 3. in Soviet Russia 4. BSD Dieing 5. Profit fix?

      My how its changed, I miss 120 pixel wide, 16 color animated gif DMCAless banners.

      --
      Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
    2. Re:The ARPAnet, not quite the Internet by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Enjoy your memories.

      All the fun of BBS textfiles without the modem.

      --

      ---
      Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
      (I read with sigs off.)
  14. Holy mother of Christ on a stick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've got to go through high school and university again? Bum

    This time I won't do computer science.

  15. dunno about the Internet but by dsanfte · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not sure about this Internet thing, but I heard about the IntarWeb from a friend and gave it a shot. It's great! There's free Britney pics, lots of this "pr0n" stuff at various sites starting with the word goat, and forums full of all kinds of wonderful religious fanatics, ready to convert me to their cult. I love it!

    --
    occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
    1. Re:dunno about the Internet but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      i think i've heard of one of the cults that you're talking about...something like the cult of lienooks...

  16. Karma killer by Zorilla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow, the Slashdot editors must really have a grudge against the masses today. I figured this would be the best way to justify killing everybody's karma through redundant mods.

    Also, who would even be surprised anymore if they didn't even see as much as an acknowledgement of the mistake being corrected, just a quick change from "25" to "35"?

    --

    It would be cool if it didn't suck.
  17. What progress by Alcimedes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Initially, the internet was bits of meaningless data between two computers.

    Today? Bits of meaningless data between millions of computers.

    All joking aside though, I have no idea how people got anything done before the internet.

    Need to fix something around the house? Check the 'net.

    Need to figure out where the hell a business/friend is? Check the 'net.

    Have some jackass who insists they're right about some obscure factoid, and want to make them admit they're full of crap now, before they can deny it ever happened? Good 'ol internet.

    Between wireless, high-speed access, and laptops within an arm's reach, the average person now has access to information that used to be obscure and almost impossible to come by at a moments notice.

    In 35 years, the internet has probably done more to change the way people live than any other invention. (at least in the last 100 years or so) That dude who discovered fire and the wheel did pretty well for humanity.

    1. Re:What progress by Inthewire · · Score: 5, Informative

      Air conditioning.
      Polio vaccine.
      Traffic lights.
      Frozen food.
      Television.
      Large-scale farming.
      Credit cards.
      Flouride.

      There have been dozens if not hundreds of things invented in the past 100 years that have changed lifestyles more than the internet.

      --


      Writers imply. Readers infer.
    2. Re:What progress by nuclear305 · · Score: 4, Funny

      "All joking aside though, I have no idea how people got anything done before the internet."

      That was back when people still left their houses to find their friends, and read books to research those obscure factoids :)

    3. Re:What progress by toxcspdrmn · · Score: 4, Funny
      That dude who discovered fire and the wheel did pretty well for humanity
      That was the same guy both times? Cool.
      --
      "E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
    4. Re:What progress by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "There have been dozens if not hundreds of things invented in the past 100 years that have changed lifestyles more than the internet."

      Television is the only thing I see on that list that could qualify with your statement. Everything else, though significant, is not in the same league. There are a LOT of people on this planet that if you were to send them back 100 years in the past, the net would be the thing they most ache for. (Unless they had polio :P)

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    5. Re:What progress by jericho4.0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      TV certainly has had a huge impact on our society, but the internet beats the rest, IMHO.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
    6. Re:What progress by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe YOUR lifestyle. If so, hand over your geek license.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    7. Re:What progress by abborren · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Visiting the library once in a while is useful. It is quite a mistake to believe that the internet is a good source for all information you need. Sure, it can provide a lot of useful information but often in low quantities and very spread out (and what about peer-review?).

      Finding good and useful information in a library is way more efficient than searching the web, if you compare time spend vs. amount of found (and good) information, IMHO.

      --
      ><////>
    8. Re:What progress by jesser · · Score: 2, Funny

      All joking aside though, I have no idea how people got anything done before the internet.

      Why don't you search Google and find out?

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
  18. Re:Yay! by nkh · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope you don't live in the USA or you are in serious trouble for copyright infrigement on the "Happy Birthday" song!

  19. Re:And in this time of Celebration let us not forg by sqrt(2) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Remember America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it back! Think about it."

    --
    If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
  20. Internet Day - Sept 2 by Ravensign · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sept 2 should be a national holiday.

    What are you getting for Internet Day?

    Why a new Cisco 7x00 series router!

    Thank you Linus Claus!

    --
    "Sig free in '03!"
  21. ...I blame Y2K. by Behrooz · · Score: 2, Funny

    I blame Y2K. Anyway, is it 1994 or not? I need to know if they'll let me into the bar tonight.

    --
    "We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
  22. It's Metric Years by Alien54 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Just like they use at Nasa

    No, Really.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  23. Well, 35 years was a good run. by e9th · · Score: 2, Funny

    But I knew back in '73 when we got our IMP that no good would come of it.

  24. Too bad you can't buy intelligence, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now I understand why you paid $115 for your current user ID, dolo666.

  25. First Spam by TheFairElf · · Score: 4, Funny
    "...as bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two computers"

    So they first tested Internet with spam? With that kind of a start no wonder we're in the current mess!

  26. Who would have guessed by dev32810 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    that in the summer of 1969 the just completed moon landing would have almost no impact to our lives 35 years later, but these bits between two computers would change the face of the world. Weird...

    1. Re:Who would have guessed by YouHaveSnail · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, that's not right. The moon landing, along with the rest of the Mercury and Apollo missions, had a profound and lasting impact on the world. Yes, we're not all flitting from one planet to the next in our own personal rocket ships, but we think about ourselves and our place in the universe differently now. If you think the moon landings have had no impact on your life, it's most likely that you've never lived in a world without space travel.

      The Internet happened in a very different way. Its inception was, at the time, incomprehensible to everyone but a few smartypants researchers. And even those scientists really had no idea how the net would grow to encompass so much of our lives. Even fifteen years after its birth, very few people had any clue about the Internet. The Internet may have been technically born when the first two machines were plugged in, but it wasn't important until many years later, when it became a movement.

    2. Re:Who would have guessed by corb00 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm sorry, but have to agree with previous post.
      Von Braun, father of APOLLO, predicted the following scenarios:

      1) all funds spent on accomplishing a manned landing on moon
      -> no further missions possible
      OR
      2) land unmanned and preserve budget for a better and gradual research

      we all know what happened ..

  27. Seconded by toddhisattva · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All reporters should have a 3-day fact-checking period before they can print a story.

  28. hahah by Vlion · · Score: 2, Funny

    ooo look!
    25 is isomorphic to 35- it changes randomly.
    First 25, now 35, looky 25 is coming back soon!

    --
    /b
    |f(x)dx = F(b) - F(a)
    /a
  29. In the year 2014.... by monoqlith · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Internet suddenly has a mid-life crisis. Looking back on its life, it realizes its squandered its time on earth on porn, e-commerce, and petty IM conversations. . The Internet feels hollow and worthless. To console itself, it buys a Porsche from www.porsche.com, and takes it out on the road. Now feeling youthful and vibrant, the Internet uses the Porsche to woo a younger network. Soon enough, the Internet and the younger network are in the throes of a sultry affair. One night, the Internet's rubber breaks and he accidentally gets the younger network pregnant. Scared, the Internet runs away, and the younger network is left on its own to raise the Subnet. The Subnet grows into a full Class C and then into an Internet of its own.

  30. The internet is lots of girls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    And defying statistics, 99% of them just turned 18!

  31. I don't trust your math by tunabomber · · Score: 5, Funny

    And another thing- if the Internet really is 25 (or 35, whatever)- how come she has so many web sites that say she just turned 18?

    --

    pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71 ...
    1. Re:I don't trust your math by Fus · · Score: 2, Funny

      I hope not! If thats the case, I'm in really big trouble with the Feds. Honest, I didnt know she wasnt 18!!

      --
      _____^_-________ Fus Was Here
  32. And... by atomm1024 · · Score: 5, Funny
    The "meaningless test data," by the way, read thusly:
    g00b3r69: hey a/s/l?
    h0t_arpa_chik: 19/f/dc
    g00b3r69: kewl 20/m/dc wanna cyber?
    h0t_arpa_chik: k
    In other news, September 3 marks be the 35th anniversary of Goatse (and, additionally marking the birthday of leetspeak, we must remember that back then it was known only by its IP address -- 60.47.53.101).
    --
    Signature.
  33. language by 10000000000000000000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    this type of thing always makes me wonder about all the other firsts out there.

    like the first word. What was the first word? it had to have happened somewhere at sometime, right?

    We are fortunate enough to actually know when the first bits flowed accross this leap in human communication we call the Internet (or internet for those that like to mux with things).

    But that first being on some ancient plain understanding the concept that she can convey an idea; that she has ideas, that she is something.

    Someone, at sometime, somewhere expressed to another entity a concept - and it was the first time.

    Mind blowing.

    on that day 35 years ago this same type of event was repeated in a new iteration.

    1. Re:language by corb00 · · Score: 2, Informative

      what was the first word ?
      --- here is the answer from the author:
      http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/first_words.html

  34. ipv6 vs ipv4 inaccuracy in CNN article by stanwirth · · Score: 2, Informative
    Change doesn't come easily, however. For instance, the IPv6 numbering system was deemed an Internet standard about five years ago, but the vast majority of software and hardware today still runs on the older IPv4, which is rapidly running out of room.

    Ipv4 running out of room is a bit of a myth -- there's still plenty of companies and uninversities with huge blocks of ipv4 address space that they have for historical reasons.

    Most ipv4 stacks run on top of an ipv6 stack now and have for several years. I don't see what hardware has to do with it, unless they mean those old routers on the backbone. Most peoples' desktop's and server's NICs can already handle ipv6, and there's nothing stopping them from writing and using ipv6-based applications (client and server). Gettiing ipv6 packets through an ipv4-only backbone segment is just a matter of setting up a tunnel.

    PS I think they meant internet turns 23 -- in hex

    1. Re:ipv6 vs ipv4 inaccuracy in CNN article by suwain_2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ipv4 running out of room is a bit of a myth -- there's still plenty of companies and uninversities with huge blocks of ipv4 address space that they have for historical reasons.

      Rather than debunk the myth, you've proved it.

      The whole reason we're "running out of room" is that "old" companies have massive netblocks they're not even beginning to use.

      This is like saying, "There's still plenty of land left in the city. Big companies bought it all up to hold onto." There's plenty of unused IPs out there. The problem is that they'll probably never be assigned.

      I once wrote a script to do a whois on every Class A, and lump them into a text file. I was surprised to find that the United States Government owns something like 30 Class A's.

      It's not a lack of unused IPs. It's a lack of allocatable IPs.

      --
      ________________________________________________
      suwain_2 :: quality slashdot p
    2. Re:ipv6 vs ipv4 inaccuracy in CNN article by DrDebug · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, one of the lesser known goals of IPv6 is to DECREASE the size of the routing tables. This happens because of better allocation of IP routes.

  35. It's the Meaning, Stupid by handy_vandal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... bits of meaningless test data ...

    Meaningless? Meaningless?

    Those bits weren't "meaningless" -- they meant something very clear and important:

    Test successful.

    -kgj

    --
    -kgj
  36. BBN & IMP at McClellan by chiph · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In 1986 I was stationed at McClellan AFB, and got to watch some contractors install about 4 racks of beige equipment called an "Interface Message Processor" from a company called BBN. I had no clue at the time it was part of the internet. About ten years later I realized what it was, and thought "Wow, I got to see an IMP in person!"

    Sorry, I don't have a photo (and couldn't find one via Google) -- cameras weren't allowed in the area. The very first IMPs looked like this, though.

    Chip H.

  37. Was going so well by bigberk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So it started with technological innovation, and saw rapid development through the cooperation of governments and universities. It was refined and improved thanks to the effort of a bunch of awfully dedicated academics to the point where it could merge with mainstream technologies (talking PPP over analog phone modems). The new worldwide resource gave us the ability to communicate like never before.

    Things were going so well, until the marketers came on board and started flooding people with ads and junk whatever way they could find. Spam was funny at first; now it's a serious waste of bandwidth and resources, with business people resorting to purely criminal activities in order to flood their advertising and harm benevolent volunteer organizations. Thanks to dirty business the Internet has become a battle ground. Spyware and even viruses are directly linked to immoral advertising/spam.

    Now, I don't hate marketing people (I run a businses, and am a student in Management) but it's safe to say that immoral marketers are f*cking up the Internet.

  38. OSQ by Aggrazel · · Score: 4, Funny

    They have the internet on computers now?

  39. Already 35? by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wow, is it already 35? I feel so old... I remember when back in the early 1970s I said to one of my friends that I don't know when, I don't know how, but I am sure that eventually one day someone will somehow use this new technology for pornography... In my sickest dreams I haven't imagined something on the scale of images.google.com, though. That having been said, happy birthday to Internet, the most important achievment of humanity since the printing press. It all began on "September 2, 1969, as bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two computers." Today, after only 35 years, the unbelievably obscene amount of meaningless data silently flowing between billions of computers in every second, makes me wonder: can the net amount of entropy of the universe be decreased? Will the Internet help us find any meaningful answer? In any case, I am sure that the Internet is something which our grandchildren and their grandchildren will learn at school about. September 2 is a very important day. There is even an article on Wikipedia about this very day. I believe every person who has ever published anything on the Internet should be proud, because this is something all of us has created, even if none of use has envisioned. Truly remarkable achievment. Happy birthday!

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
  40. 35 and counting by yintercept · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two computers

    What I am looking forward to the day when we finally get beyond the meaningless test data phase...uh, anyway, I looked at /. for the day and am off to the email account to perform a spam harvest.

  41. Houston we have a problem... by dfj225 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Working with NASA, Cerf is also trying to extend the network into outer space to better communicate with spacecraft."
    Astronaut: Houston, we have a problem...one of the display screens is reading "j00 R pAwned".

    --
    SIGFAULT
  42. 1969 Internet maps by oob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's a nice collection of Internet maps from September 1969 onwards, showing the network build out from UCLA to include Stanford, UCSB, Utah and so on.

  43. Older than 35 really... by Hobadee · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you define "Internet" as two or more computers communicating with each other, then it's been around for longer. Hackers at MIT way back when hooked together 2 computers (PDP-11 and PDP-7 I think) and told some professors they had created a chess program. They had one professor sit in one room at the terminal for one of the computers, and the other professor in the other room with the terminal for the other computer. The professors played each other for a while until one of them realized the responses were a bit slow, then saw/followed the wire into the next room where the other professor was sitting!

    --
    ...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
  44. Not only is the Internet 35, but so is the WWW!!! by skintigh2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just ask the "tech" "reporter" at AP "news."

    Web Turns 35, but Still Work in Progress
    http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=st ory&cid=52 8&e=1&u=/ap/20040829/ap_on_hi_te/internet_s_birthd ay

  45. Count with porn by superpulpsicle · · Score: 3, Funny

    The birth of the Internet should count when the first porn picture was published. Seriously, until it was made to the masses with a non-scientific use did it matter to the public.

    1. Re:Count with porn by CreatureComfort · · Score: 2, Funny


      You think it took until it was made open to the public for the first porn was available? You obviosly don't know how boring it could be sitting and feeding punch cards in... Go ASCII pr0n! Woohoo...

      --
      "Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
      Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
  46. Original IMP by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I still remember seeing the original IMP at Case Tech, one of the first sixteen nodes. It was also the first to be removed. Case lost their R&D contract, which was to develop something like a VHDL compiler, decades too early. So DARPA took their IMP back.

    But nobody really cared at Case, because the emphasis there was on "high-capacity, fast-turnaround batch computing". They got really good at batch job processing. It was so cost-effective that Case stayed with it years after other schools went interactive.

  47. technically, just the ArpaNet is 35 by peter303 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Until the mid-80s there were several national networks with various qualities of interconnectability-ArpaNet, MilNet, NSFNet, BitNet, etc. The "InterNet" agreed on standardized protocols and funded a trans-continental optical fiber backbone. AL Gore (really) is repsonsible for that legislation.