[kictanet] Yes, Government Researchers Really Did Invent the Internet

[Alice Munyua]

  Yes, Government Researchers Really Did Invent the Internet
  <http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/>

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/?print=true

By Michael Moyer | July 23, 2012


?It?s an urban legend that the government launched the Internet,? writes 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html> 
Gordon Crovitz in an opinion piece in today?s /Wall Street Journal/. 
Most histories cite the Pentagon-backed ARPANet 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Internet-at-40> as the 
Internet?s immediate predecessor, but that view undersells the 
importance of research conducted at Xerox PARC labs in the 1970s, claims 
Crovitz. In fact, Crovitz implies that, if anything, government 
intervention gummed up the natural process of laissez faire innovation. 
?The Internet was fully privatized in 1995,? says Crovitz, ?just as the 
commercial Web began to boom.? The implication is clear: the Internet 
could only become the world-changing force it is today once big 
government got out of the way.

But Crovitz?s story is based on a profound misunderstanding of not only 
history 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Internet-at-40>, but 
technology. Most egregiously, Crovitz seems to confuse the Internet 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Internet-at-40>?at 
heart, a set of protocols designed to allow far-flung computer networks 
to communicate with one another?with Ethernet, a protocol for connecting 
nearby computers into a local network. (Robert Metcalfe 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=using-the-internets-history-to-develop>, 
a researcher at Xerox PARC who co-invented the Ethernet protocol, today 
tweeted <https://twitter.com/BobMetcalfe/status/227426481901559808> 
tongue-in-cheek ?Is it possible I invented the whole damn Internet??)

The most important part of what we now know of as the Internet is the 
TCP/IP protocol, which was invented by Vincent Cerf 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pioneer-cerf> 
and Robert Kahn. Crovitz mentions TCP/IP, but only in passing, calling 
it (correctly) ?the Internet?s backbone.? He fails to mention that Cerf 
and Kahn developed TCP/IP while working on a government grant 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pioneer-cerf>.

Other commenters, including Timothy B. Lee at Ars Technica 
<http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/> 
and veteran technology reporter Steve Wildstrom 
<http://techpinions.com/wsjs-internet-history-is-way-off/8080>, have 
noted that Crovitz?s misunderstandings run deep. He also manages to 
confuse the World Wide Web 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web> 
(incidentally, invented by Tim Berners Lee 
<http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=web-20-anniversary> 
while working at CERN, a government-funded research laboratory) with 
hyperlinks, and an internet?a link between two computers?with THE Internet.

But perhaps the most damning rebuttal 
<http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-mo-who-invented-internet-20120723,0,5052169.story> 
comes from Michael Hiltzik, the author ?Dealers of Lightning 
<http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895>,? 
a history of Xerox PARC that Crovitz uses as his main source for 
material. ?While I?m gratified in a sense that he cites my book,? writes 
Hiltzik, ?it?s my duty to point out that he?s wrong. My book bolsters, 
not contradicts, the argument that the Internet had its roots in the 
ARPANet, a government project.?

In truth, no private company would have been capable of developing a 
project like the Internet, which required years of R&D efforts spread 
out over scores of far-flung agencies, and which began to take off only 
after decades of investment. Visionary infrastructure projects such as 
this are part of what has allowed our economy to grow so much in the 
past century. Today?s op-ed is just one sad indicator of how we seem to 
be losing our appetite for this kind of ambition.

*About the Author:* Michael Moyer is the editor in charge of technology 
coverage at Scientific American. Follow on Twitter @mmoyr 
<http://twitter.com/mmoyr>.
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