Module VII·Article III·~1 min read
Internet: History and Philosophy of the Global Network
The Computer Revolution and the Information World
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ARPANET and the Birth of the Network
The internet grew out of a U.S. military project—ARPANET (1969)—which was created with the requirement of resilience to nuclear attack. Packet switching (instead of chained connections) allowed the network to operate even when nodes were damaged. The first message sent via ARPANET: “lo”—the computer crashed during an attempt to transmit “login”.
Email appeared in 1971. TCP/IP (1983)—the protocol that became the language of the internet. Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1991 as a tool for CERN physicists. The Mosaic browser (1993) made it accessible to everyone. The first online advertisement—a hyperlink—appeared in 1994. Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay—1995. Google—1998.
This is the history of the increasing commercialization of an originally academic network.
Philosophy of Open Systems
The internet is built on the “end-to-end” principle: intelligence resides at the ends (users’ computers), while the network remains a “dumb pipe”. This ensures neutrality—any application can run over the network.
“Network neutrality” is a political issue: should internet service providers treat all traffic equally or can they prioritize paying users? The FCC in the U.S. repealed net neutrality rules in 2017—then restored them in 2024. This is a battle over the nature of the internet.
Richard Stallman, the free software movement, Linux, Wikipedia—the philosophy of open systems: knowledge and program code should be free. “Copyleft” as an alternative to “copyright”. Wikipedia as a living example of crowdsourced knowledge.
Question for reflection: The internet was created as an open system—today several closed platforms dominate. What does this say about the dynamics of open vs. closed systems in innovation?
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