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..."

Comments

"Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet"

[daniil]

If you say it three times it's true. Not.

Re:"Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet"

[Catbeller]

" If Al Gore didn't have a well-deserved reputation for firing off whoppers, this one wouldn't have stuck."

He had no such reputation. As the parent post's link points out, it was fabricated by the RNC and various eager writers in 2000.

Bush, however, has a long history of non-history. Which rarely has been questioned by those self-same eager boys. His arrest record. Drug use. Alchoholism until he was 40. Violent behavior. Horrfying academic record coupled with a well-documented sense of disdain towards university education. Dad's friends' influence in getting him into the champagne unit of the Texas Air National Guard. Failure to show up for duty. Refusing direct orders to report for a physical. Failure to be sent to Vietnam via the Army for refusing said order, which happened to other officers who did not obey orders. Failures of his "businesses". His involvement in the real estate deal in which land granted to build a baseball stadium was instead sold off to build profitable developments, giving him his first real money with which to run for governor. The utter fiscal disaster left in Texas after his tax cuts there. The collapse of the Texas school system, with his blessing. The funeral industry scandal that he involved himself in. The amazing elevation of a no-account dunderhead to governor and then President in less than five years. His daughters: the restauranteur who carded the twins was weeks later ruined by inspectors - business lost as retribution. The retribution against the man who outed the Bush's national guard record - his veterans benefits canceled as he dies from a viral infection caught in service. The vile accusations against McCain in 2000. the unbelieveable memetic attack against Gore in 2000. The Bush brothers control of the electoral process in Florida in 2000. The recount blockage. The fake "riot" in Dade county against election officials, rioters composed of RNC staffers. The shutdown of environmental laws. Of the Microsoft case. The unbelieveable failure to read critical material before 9-11 warning of the attack. the four-year campaign to block the investigation of such. The utilization of a sad, small attack by a couple of dozen fanatics to convince Americans they were at war with Iraq, Iran, Europe, and anyone who looked at us funny. The complete failure to capture the man who actually attacked us. The illegal imprisonment of anyone who looked useful in making the dope look competent in waging war. The flauting of the law in imprisonment and torture of anyone they felt like. Ignoring the Supreme Court in refusing a fair hearing to those tortured. The suppression of the torture news. The suppression of any news that they made inaccurate statement about "evidence" of Saddam Hussein's involvement in the 9-11 idiots' attack. The complete restructuring of the U.S. into a police state, ongoing. Refusing to answer questions put to him by the press. Declarations that the press was an "interest group", and as such, could be ignored or lied to. Creation of special civilian "intellence" filters that culled "facts" from the CIA biomass that the President could use to invade a non-combatant nation.The setup later to blame the CIA for the information they themselves filtered and massaged, and therefore take direct control of ALL intel agencies. War crimes against a non-hostile nation. Imprisonment of citizens of a non-hostile nation. Torture of citizens of a non-hostile nation. Coverup of same. Successful attempts, through RNC-sympathetic corporate board members at GE, Disney, Viacom and AOL-Time-Warner, to "Red State" or "Nascarize" the news operations of NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN, now ongoing as the Brokow, Jennings, and Rathers are being expunged simultaneously along with all non-right-wing thinkers. The current run-up to invade Iran. The destruction of Social Security by tax cuts. The future elimination of public education by the deaths of a thousand cuts to advance a religious and private school system. Censorship. State religion. The complete restructuring of the judiciary to a Chicago-

Re:"Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet"

[Canth7]

There are times when you can say that there are two sides of the coin and that what are considered lies and flip-flops are just misunderstandings and distortions created by the opposition. This is not the case with th Bush administration. Clearly, this president has flip-flopped far more than can be attributed to either Gore or Keri. To the Bush-lovers out there - I'd like to see someone refute this top ten list (with FACTS, not opinion and bluster, please): http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/28/politics /main646142.shtml

wow, irony

[nomadic]

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.

Re:wow, irony

[sam_handelman]

"I took the initiative in creating the Internet." (1)

!=

"I invented the internet." (2)

Statement 2 is entirely incorrect, and Gore did not say it!

Statement 1 is essentially correct - the internet was created by legislation, and Gore was instrumental in getting that legislation passed.

Re:wow, irony

[Mr. Slippery]

We can make fun of all the misspeaking that Dubya does, but we can't mock Gore for saying "I took the initiative in creating the Internet."?

In context, Gore's words were quite accurate. Just as we say that Bush II invaded Iraq even though he's not out there with a rifle, or we say that "Eisenhower created the Interstate system" even though he wasn't out there with a bulldozer.

So, no, you shouldn't distort an accurate statement and then mock the distorted version. Especially where there's so much else about Gore worthy of being mocked. I'm all for mocking politicians, just keep it accurate.

Re:wow, irony

[Minna Kirai]

We can make fun of all the misspeaking that Dubya does, but we can't mock Gore for saying "I took the initiative in creating the Internet."?

Mock that if you must. But inserting "invented" in place of "took the initiative in creating" completely changes the meaning.

People keep misquoting it with "invent" because that makes it funnier- because stupidity is funny, whether or not it's true.

Re:wow, irony

[sam_handelman]

No, but Roosevelt did "Take the Initiative in creating" the atomic bomb, on Einsteins advice.

Look, if a Senator drafts legislation that provides funding for road work in his precinct, he will (justifiably) say "I fixed the roads in the great State of Montana!"

Did the Senator get in a piece of earth moving equipment and do road work? Obviously not. But no one jumps on him and calls him a liar.

The thing which we call "the Internet", defined by its use by civilians, exists because of the legislation, introduced by Gore, that funded it. You can say it was already created at that point, and I ridicule that assertion - this happened in *1989* - it was in the process of being created, and DARPA had defunded it. Gore "took the initiative", and introduced legislation that allowed others to finish creating the Internet.

He didn't use the verb create - he used the present progressive "creating".

If Gates were to say "I took the initiative in adding XXX feature to Internet Explorer" - the fact that he does none of the work himself makes no difference. The *initiative* is still his.

Speaking of misinformation...

[swordgeek]

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.

Re:Speaking of misinformation...

[EvilFrog]

What Gore said was poorly worded, but true.

If Gore hadn't pushed for funding of the National Science Foundation to create nsfnet, the Internet wouldn't exist in the manner it is today.

Just change "took the initiative in creating the internet" with "ran the initiative to fund the creation of the internet" and you have a sentence that means the exact same thing yet can't be misinterpreted.

Re:Speaking of misinformation...

[Jeremi]

He may not have meant for it to come out like he invented the Internet, but it sure sounds like it

And that's close enough for a good smear campaign, isn't it?

If you ever wonder why politicians so often sound like robots when they are speaking in public, this is why: because they have to constantly watch every single word they utter, to make sure that nothing they say (and no subset of anything they say) can be taken out of context and twisted against them. So instead of just speaking their position, they have to run this expensive (O(N^2)) political-defense algorithm on everything they say -- and since very few people can run that algorithm in real time, most politicians end up just repeating a few pre-vetted canned phrases over and over again.

Poor Al

[bigtallmofo]

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?

What claim?

[gabe]

Al Gore did NOT claim he invented the internet.

Re:What claim?

[hazem]

So taking "the initiative in creating" something isn't inventing it? Am I unreasonable in thinking otherwise?

If he were an inventor, that could make sense. But, he was a lawmaker, and he was referencing his work in the congress.

If Reagan had said, "I took the initiative in creating the Star Wars Missile Defense System", would you first assume that he was working in a lab, designing high-energy lasers? Or would you go with the more rational assumption that he provided some leadership in getting it done?

The problem is that we Americans are pretty much dumb, reactionary, rather uneducated. We approach a situation already with the answer we want and grasp onto "evidence" that supports it.

Here, non-Gore supporters don't like Gore and hear someone say he claimed to invent the internet. Hearing the whole statement in context, it's difficult to rationally come to the assumption that Al was slaving away in his basement inventing routers, network cards, fiber optics, and cat-5.

We'd rather be intellectually dishonest than concede a nifty soundbite that makes us sound so smart, clever, and in tune.

Don't forget

[dextromulous]

Gore has ridden the mighty moon worm.

Al Gore's Internet

[jea6]

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):

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.htm

Re:Al Gore's Internet

[hazem]

How else exactly would you interpret that?

Ummm... that he was a lawmaker, talking about his record, and among the things he worked on was getting support for creating the internet.

You have to either be intellectually dishonest, or dumb as a bag of hammers to assume he was inventing the internet.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. It's an example that may not have a basis in fact, but exhibits certain constraints that permit analysis, and possibly the finding of a solution.

Let's suppose I am the mayor of your town, and the streets in the town are very dirty. There's no city program for cleaning the streets. So, as mayor, I lobby the city council, dedicate resources, hire staff, and invest in street cleaning equipment.... all of this is dedicated to getting the streets clean. So, a year later, the streets are really clean, and I'm running for reelection. And I state in an interview, "During my service as your mayor, I took the initiative in cleaning the city streets."

Now... would you be a dufus and assume that statement meant I single-handedly went out and cleaned the streets? Or would you use some of your brainpower and figure out that I meant that I took the initiative in getting the streets cleaned.

Hell, I didn't like Gore, and I didn't vote for him. But it makes us all dumber when we cling to insipid arguments like, "he claimed he invented the internet".

It's the same idiocy with people saying Bush is stupid. Clearly, he's smart enough to get through grad school (even with a C average), be the governor of a large state, and become the president of the US. Not being able to speak elloquently does not make him stupid. On the other hand, I also believe he's been one of the most harmful presidents in recent history.

It's sad that we Americans have lowered the political discourse to "he claims he invented the internet", and "he's dumb". Really, it just makes us all dumber.

dnsalias?

[fembots]

I don't think anything can survive with a dnsalias address.

Coralized Pages here.

Gore did not claim he invented the Internet

[sg3000]

Gore never claimed to have "invented" the Internet. In fact, the claim that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet should be on the list for the impressive "Institue".

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:

Gore did provide early support for the technology - even if he puffed up his role - but computer pioneers can't even agree on exactly what the Internet is, let alone who created it. ... Technical histories of the Internet refer mainly to the technical milestones along the way. Among all the techno-whizzes that get the credit, only one legislator is mentioned - Gore - despite the fact that every stage of the Internet's evolution was funded and directed by federal grants and initiatives.

Gore was widely credited in histories written long before the vice president's oft-derided comment to CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer that he ''took the initiative in creating the Internet.''

Gore is credited by the technological cognoscenti for having sponsored legislation that helped launch the expansion of the fledgling Internet to ever-wider uses. As early as 1986, Gore articulated a vision of widespread connected computing. In 1989, he said that ''the creation of this nationwide network ... will create an environment where work stations are common in homes and even small businesses.''

Two years later, he introduced a followup bill to expand access to the network, saying, ''In the future, I think we will see computers and networks used to teach every subject from kindergarten through grade school.''

None of these histories comes close to giving him credit for the ''creation'' of the Internet. One account, written by Vinton Cerf (widely known, though he eschews the title, as ''the father of the Internet''), states: ''I think the vice president is very deserving of credit for his active support for the Internet and the businesses that depend on it daily.''

Cerf, now a vice president at MCI-Worldcom, added that ''his remark was almost certainly a slip of the tongue, because he'd be quite correct to say `I helped create the Internet' - because of his work to provide an environment of support for research, technology transfer and e-commerce initiatives so fundamental to the Internet today.''

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."

Re:Gore's "claim"

[nordicfrost]

Link to debunking of lie.

It seems

[NIK282000]

That site is internet history as well.

Very realistic

[nizo]

From the front page:

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!

Pong did it

[shadowsurfr1]

I still give credit to pong for inventing it.

You call that a history?

[wombatmobile]

This is history.

From ISOC.

Re:Institute of Internet History

[jnik]

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.

Re:Who trusts snopes anymore?

[Jeremi]

Hey, it's the Karl Rove two-step, right here on Slashdot!

1. Smear your opponent with a distortion, exaggeration, or outright falsehood.
2. If anyone attempts to correct your distortion, find some tidbit from their past that can be used to prove they are "biased" and "untrustworthy" and loudly accuse them of partisan hackery. You can do this regardless of whether their current argument is valid or not -- that's too fine a distinction for the audience to care about.

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 heard this story from someone who was there

[Raul654]

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.

Re:One internet? That's nothing!

[LinuxHam]

Doesn't that mean there are not multiple internets?

I have a family member who worked for the defense contractor CSC for many years. Over lunch one day, he told me that there are at least five "global Internets" that he knows of.. and how the govt gave the worst one to the public to play with. He went on to describe how they have separate military and public computer and phone networks wired into the building and to each person's desk. And never the two shall meet. They call it the "dark side" and the "light side". I asked him what would happen if an email intended for the "light side" ever ended up in his "dark side" inbox. He replied that guys in dark sunglasses would probably be there a few minutes later.

I saw their kerberos keyserver.. he had to go through three swipe card doors to get back there, and I couldn't get within five feet of the console.

Re:CHENEY OPPOSED THE INTERNET

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Feel free to mark this as Redundant -- as long as

[Antaeus Feldspar]

As long as I can mark that front-page article by the editors as Irresponsible And Just Plain Wrong. I won't be the only one to point this out, I know, but I think it bears repeating, especially because it's the sort of thing that could potentially lead to lawsuits.

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...)

Re:Slashdotted Already?-Weaving the Web.

[mefus]

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.

Cake; having and eating

[A nonymous Coward]

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?