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History of the First Internet
U96 writes "Ever since the Gore claim to have "invented" the internet, its history has been the subject of misinformation and ridicule. The Institue of Internet History contains an accurate, in-depth examination of the early industrial origins of the internet. An interesting read..."
I don't seem to be able to load the link... it can't be slashdotted already, can it? :P
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
If you say it three times it's true. Not.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Ever since the Gore claim to have "invented" the internet, its history has been the subject of misinformation and ridicule.
Considering Gore never claimed to have invented the internet, you've actually managed to include misinformation in a sentence criticizing misinformation. Well done.
Al Gore NEVER CLAIMED TO HAVE INVENTED THE INTERNET!!!
NEVER!
NOT ONCE!
He did claim to have pushed for financing of it, which led to the development of it beyond its original boundaries. This is actually true! But he never claimed to have invented the internet.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
First the 2000 election was stolen from him, now the vast right-wing conspiracy is attempting to defrock him of his Internet-Inventor title.
When will Republicans stop picking on this man?
I'm a big tall mofo.
Al Gore did NOT claim he invented the internet.
Gabriel Ricard
Gore has ridden the mighty moon worm.
There are two types of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don't.
Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the Internet.
Status: False.
Origins: No, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The derisive "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs are misleading distortions of something he said (taken out of context) during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htmsarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
I don't think anything can survive with a dnsalias address.
Coralized Pages here.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
What Gore said is that in an 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." As Al Franken wrote:
> The phrase "invented the Internet" first appeared in a
> Republican Party press release and would be repeated by the
> "liberal" press thousands of times during the campaign.
Snopes the urban legend debunking website reported on this as well:
> Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he "invented" the
> Internet.
> Status: False.
> Origins: No, Al Gore did not claim he "invented" the Internet,
> nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted
> that way. The derisive "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet"
> put-downs are misleading distortions of something he said
> (taken out of context) during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on
> CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999.
As the Boston Globe [Oct 17,2000] reported:
So, if the Republicans were working to trash Gore's reputation, I guess they could say "Mission Accomplished".
Taco, thanks for proving once again the old proverb, "a lie can make it halfway 'round the world before the truth gets its boots on."
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Link to debunking of lie.
Pah, Gore might have "invented" the Internet, but Dubya invented lots of Internets! Internets on the house for everyone!
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
That site is internet history as well.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Gore never claimed to have "invented" the Internet. He did, however, correctly take credit for chairing the committee that created the Internet (and yes, the Internet was a government creation). Our bilious politics and the American (and French) habit of analysis by sarcasm, coupled with the media's and citizenry's incredible laziness, led to the damaging sound bites.
This is from the Daily Howler's excellent analysis of this whole issue (http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml) It starts several paragraphs into the piece:
Martin Walker wrote this in The Guardian:
WALKER (12/30/88): American computing scientists are campaigning for the creation of a "superhighway" which would revolutionise data transmission.
Legislation has already been laid before Congress by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, calling for government funds to help establish the new network, which scientists say they can have working within five years, at a cost of Dollars 400 million.
This Institute of Internet History (IOIH) is dedicated to the recording and documenting the history of the Internet...
Click here to start the journey...
Right now it is loading about as fast as a BBS login screen downloading at 300baud to a paper terminal. Talk about a realistic tour of the beginnings of the internet!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
All those who have seen an IMP in person, raise your hand.
{raises hand}
I saw some BBN technicians install an IMP while I was stationed at McClellan AFB in 1985-6. It took up 4 racks (but probably could have fit in 3). At the time, I had no clue what it was for.
Chip H.
i do beleive that the last 3/4ths of posters are "off topic" or "redundant"
the 3rd or so post linked to the al gore invented the internet, now there are about 20 more to the same site.
so is there a mirror of the article somewhere for us to read?
In our days we used smoke signal .....
I still give credit to pong for inventing it.
This is history.
From ISOC.
It's hosted on a dynamic IP service..i.e. someone's home box. It has the slashdot "funny" icon on it. Even without being able to read TFA, I suspect you'll be disappointed.
At this point, the debate will move to discussing whether or not the countering party is trustworthy or not. Now no matter which way this debate goes, you've won! Your original accusation is now taken for granted, and another if the third party ever tries to correct your accusations again, you can now point to the current "debate" (that you just manufactured) to discredit them (and change the subject) even more quickly the next time.
Granted, that article is correct, but their credibility was killed long ago.
See, it works! No need to discuss facts anymore -- just say that the messenger has no credibility, and the facts are irrelevant!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
My advisor (David Mills, first chairman of the Internet Architecture Committee and inventor of NTP) mentioned this once. He said that Al Gore's staff were at every technical meeting related to internet development, and that the funding Gore helped push through Congress was critical to the project. Furthermore, he said after that quote was widely distorted in the media (where Gore rightfully claimed credit for providing the funding), he and several others who *did* invent the internet signed a public affidavit attesting to the veracity of the claim.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
From that article: "Michael, if you're out there, please know that I am sorry for having said hurtful things."
Yeah, a partisan hack would say that.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
...and on this day of December 2004, the Internet History site was first Slashdotted!
BTW, the REAL history of the internet is in the Google Cache! I wonder if a fella could make a career out of perusing THAT?
The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'
Look it up. Gores crazy idea for funding this so called "internet" and opening it up for the public sector to use and build upon was OPPOSED by Cheney, both BILLS.
I can't figure out why so many Bush supporters earnestly defend the president for speaking clumisly, saying that we shouldn't judge him for it, and then vow to never forgive this one (mis)quoted sentence of Al Gore's that, while technically true and true in some sense of his meaning, is a little too broad. Not to suggest the Democrats aren't guilty of the same: most of politics revolves around these gaffes. This leads me to a bigger point. In these stupid squabbling matches (which human error gives us the chance to enjoy several times yearly), does anyone here just say it's all stupid? Is anyone here absolutely consistent in their opinion? The only time people seem unable to forgive these errors is when a politician in the party they don't belong to makes them. Can anyone here admit that sometimes people phrase things wrong? Does anyone here have the balls to say, yes, I sometimes fuck up my sentences? Because this is slashdot, and while I now study math and the sciences, the classes from my former writing major tell me that you folks shouldn't be critizing these people for speaking inaccurately. This is doubly true for the people who don't have the internet, as we've at least practiced our reading and writing skills online rather than rot in front of the TV.
I honestly think this lack of perspective signifies the worst about our culture. Stupid petty squabbling about wording or taking sentences to mean the most implausable things they can is not political discussion. Holding others to standards that we'd easily excuse for ourselves and those we care about is how the feeble minded make their points (this is particularly insidious if you don't know your friends are gay or smoke drugs). No one talks about ideas anymore because we can't read or think, and hence we can't speak or seperate this sort of political bullshit from the issues that matter. While in an ideal world this sort of nonsense would occur equally between both parties, the presence of dogmatic thinking absolutely requires these shallow rebuttals when the world-view encompassing dogma is questioned, lest it be contradicted. Democrats can be and often are petty, but when the significance of a person's religion and life thus far - complete with the promise of eternal happiness - are swept away in practical arguments or considerations, these sorts of rebuttals necessarily crop up. See Rush Limbaugh and his 3 divorces + drug use, then compare it to the inability to marry for gay couples and the 50% of the drug population in jail being African-American, mainly incarcarated for using crack, which is punished at 100X the severity of cocaine (they're the same drug, but cocaine is preferred by whites and not in freebase form). If there's a guide book to the battles in America we're facing right now, it's Bertrand Russel's "Why I Am Not a Christian."* I suggest you all read it.
*For those of you who are Christians, most of the book deals with the dogmatic christianity that was still lingering around the turn of the 20th century. While he does take Christianity to task for the shit smears it has stomped into the tapestry of human history, your modern faith will hardly be examined, unless he points out that the reason you find it so palatable is because of the attacks on the Church made by it's enemies across the centuries.
It's bad enough to take what Gore actually said, that he took a lead role in the creation of the Internet -- which he did, by supporting the project in his political role -- and buy into the urban legend that he said he invented it. It's even worse to put quotes around it and thus falsely claim that that word came from Gore.
So in short, as Cmdr. Taco keeps reminding us, "Hey! We're News For Nerds! News doesn't have to stick to that annoying 'truth' stuff!" (No, he didn't actually say that, but hey, let's put it in quotes as if he did...)
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
So people tell me "Check snopes, they're impartial" but I say they might not be (at least when it comes to partisan politics). In other words we're forced to have faith in them. Forgive me for being skeptical after watching this whole thing play out on the net with the snopes people.
Obviously there is no such animal as an "impartial source". Everything human made is inherently biased.
To get an unbiased view on a story you would have to know all facts related to that story in depth. This is impossible however, because:
a) not all facts are known in the public sphere; a consequence of imperfect information gathering.
b) not all facts are reported in any single news story; a consequence of bandwidth being limited, and complex issues requiring series of books instead of series of articles to be a complete accounting of the issue.
c) editors enforcing their editorial needs on reporters, such as editors on commercial news sources minimizing exposure for those stories that damage the advertisers or their corporate masters.
So, to say that a source has lost credibility because they have been shown to be biased is pretty silly. Everything is biased. It is impossible with complex issues to even get all the facts, let alone report them in an unbiased way. Heck, it's not even possible to read an unbiased story (if you ever find one) in a way that is unbiased, since we all have to deal with cognitive dissonance, and our imperfect understanding of reality means that we will discount some correct facts because they don't fit in well with some erroneous views we hold.
The only way currently that I see to get a somewhat unbiased view is to be an information hawk, get your news from all sources, cross-compare stories, keep fact databases, historical timelines, do some interviewing of key players, and generally be a reporter yourself and not rely on anyone's analysis. Since nobody can be honestly expected to do all that, I would advise the simple solution of bringing back two things people take for granted but haven't actually existed for a while now: the right to equal time for any side of the story, and the obligation of news organizations to not knowingly lie.
The fact the "Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" meme has now reach the /. headliners says to me /. is dead.
For a long time now I've noticed most "discussion" is so far off topic and so predictably childish and pointless, that there is no reason to even come here anymore.
Blah.
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Judicial activism is such a strawman. Everyone who uses that phrase ignores the actual legal reasoning behind every claim and just repeat the dirty phrase like some parrot whose recording got stuck in the groove.
They ignore conservative "judicial activism", such as making corporations legal individuals back in the 1880s or so, or the more recent remark by Justice Scalia, in the Texas case which gave homosexuals the right to privacy as regards sex in their own bedrooms; where even he admitted the legal reasoning was valid but he voted against it on the grounds it would upset the current conservative moral agenda.
Is that not the definition of judidical activism?
Infuriate left and right
Al GOre was in charge of the commitee that took the ARPAnet and made it public.
Many people in politicas and governm,ent did not want that to happen, but Al GOre used his political power, took a political risk, and signed the paper the made ARPAnet public.
It was named the internet.
So politicaly, he did create the internet. Which is fine becasue he is a politician. At no time did he take credit for the technical aspects of the Internet, on the political.
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf acknowledge in a paper titled "Al Gore and the Internet" that Al Gore has probably done more than any other elected official to support the growth and development of the Internet from the 1970's to the present.
the worse part is, people who didn't even bother to try to understand the context used this to hurts Gores election. Which would have been fine if he was running against someone who wasn't a drug using, handicapped frying, dumb ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on