10 ms·

No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

79 points by smd4 14y ago

chris_wot 14y ago
Wow. Crovitz says that Ethernet was invented to "link different computer networks". How embarrassing for his argument!
- nathan_long 14y ago
  Yes. I was fascinated to learn recently that, as Cerf says, Ethernet was based on a broadcast network in Hawaii. Two interesting things about that: 1) Networking between local machines came after larger, more distributed networks. This seems odd to us who might walk around with 3 computers on our person, but in those days, you might have 1 computer per institution, and networking's goal was to allow better sharing of those scarce resources. 2) The Ethernet method of "broadcasting" every message to everyone on the network (absent a switch to filter traffic for individual hosts) seemed odd to me when I first heard it, but there's no other way to do it in a radio network, which is what Ethernet was based on.
TheGateKeeper 14y ago
WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer. Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.
- lutze 14y ago
  Fire him... Are you serious? Like the truth has ever mattered to Murdoch. This writer is exactly on message, they'll give him a bonus.
  - mseebach 14y ago
    Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.
    - lutze 14y ago
      "BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?
      - mseebach 14y ago
        Good thing that's not what I said, then.
        lutze 14y ago
        Your comment seemed quite sarcastic, and looked to be trying to equivocate responsibility. Not that I'm above using sarcasm myself, obviously. The fact is, that in this instance, a Murdoch owned media company is clearly distorting the truth to further a political agenda. So in this instance, it is perfectly reasonable to criticise Murdoch in particular, without having to resort to qualifications. In my opinion of course.
        mseebach 14y ago
        You implied causation between working for a Murdoch-owned media outlet and writing a column with a light take on the facts. That's fallacious, and that's why I called it out.
        lutze 14y ago
        No, I implied causation between working for a Murdoch owned media outlet and writing a column furthering a specific political agenda. The lying part is incidental really.
      - jamesbritt 14y ago
        ... so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism? It didn't sound like a defense, but an observation that, sadly, this is common behavior. I also suspect it was a sly reference to some of the comments on HN, too.
- russell 14y ago
  From the WSJ: "Gordon Crovitz is a media and information industry advisor and executive, including former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, executive vice president of Dow Jones and president of its Consumer Media Group." Not exactly a random stringer.
stuff4ben 14y ago
Key quote: "Cerf: I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz' assertion."
- biot 14y ago
  The claim he's referencing: Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it languished...In less than a decade, private concerns have taken that protocol and created one of the most important technological revolutions of the millennia. Is Cerf's argument against the notion that it was private concerns that created the internet on top of a languishing protocol? That's valid, though it's certainly true that without the private sector investing in developing on top of the internet that it wouldn't be where it is today.
  - gruseom 14y ago
    Government funded the basic R&D; industry commercialized it. Has there been any real controversy about the history? It doesn't seem so. It's just that some ideologues don't like some of the facts.
  - mcguire 14y ago
    Let's see: 1975 (IIRC, TCP was somewhat later, but I'll be generous) plus 30 years would be 2005. The Boucher Bill was 1992, prior to that commercial traffic was not allowed on the ARPA/NSFNET. Now, I wasn't around for the early Internet, since it wasn't particularly common until the mid '80's, but "languish" is not how I would describe what I saw. At that time, it connected every research and most educational organizations and did almost everything it does now except carry specifically commercial traffic. HTTP was not developed until the early '90's, and there was essentially no private interest in the Internet until HTTP had become prevalent, except for what it was already doing: email, news, and file transfer. And between the introduction of commercial traffic and infrastructural improvements which were part of the dot-com boom, the Internet did those three things significantly less well than it had previously. So, yes it wouldn't be where it is today without private sector investing (particularly the massive infrastructure build-out in the late '90's). But "languish" for "30 years"? "Private concerns" created "technological revolutions"?
rondon1 14y ago
The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." In this editorial this guy is hoping to convince people that the government was not responsible for setting the foundation of the internet.
- delinka 14y ago
  Agreed. I recall someone saying once upon a time (this is a personal anecdote, not something from public history) that it would be in company's best interests to educate employees and therefore we should let the private free market handle education while altogether abolishing public education. I can't comprehend why anyone couldn't see how public education (or at the very least heavily regulated, all-private education) is an ultimate benefit to society. You think 'government indoctrination' is bad now? How about when these corporations funding the schools start insisting that curricula be modified toward their own agendas? Or perhaps when they decide indentured servitude is the best way to get a 'return on investment' (i.e. we educated you/your kids for the last five years, you owe us five years of employment at reduced wages)? But that's not actually likely to happen if education were entirely privatized. No, because corporations are focused on returns now and their numbers for this quarter and spending on education cuts into the bottom line and the ROI doesn't happen for two decades. Then, the schools realizing that everyone needs an education and it needs to be funded, start calling for taxes to pay for universal education... It's a similar problem for pure research. No one knows if pure research will pay off. Ever. Sometimes, it pays off in fifty years. On odd occasions it pays off in less than ten. It seldom pays off in the next twelve months. Someone has to insist on pure research to move technology forward. Or we could all just stay like we are, use up our resources, and go back to living in caves.
- twoodfin 14y ago
  "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody serious is arguing we shouldn't have roads and bridges. How any of this is a justification for $1T deficits and real marginal tax rates that will approach 50+% is anyone's guess. It also sounded really bad coming out of the President's mouth. "I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. . It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." Hey, maybe being "so smart" and "working harder than everyone else" doesn't guarantee success, but at least most voters think those are pretty helpful in America, and may not appreciate anyone, least of all the President, sneering at them.
newbie12 14y ago
A little funding for basic computer science research is not big government. Bailing out banks and giving private solar companies loans is big government.
- HotKFreshSwag 14y ago
  A "little funding", are you serious? DARPA is part of the freaking DoD. Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site. Yeah, companies fail. Yeah, the American government invests in American companies. Yeah, the American government can afford it. Right now the US treasury bonds that are indexed to inflation have negative interest rates[1]. Investors are _paying_ Uncle Sam money to take care of their money. The market is telling the government: invest, invest, invest. 1. http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/pages/textview.aspx?data=realyield http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/in...
  - astine 14y ago
    "Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site." I am. The government is not a VC firm. It's investment are invariably political and not business based. There's a huge potential for waste there, not to mention conflict of interest. A DoD project that happened to have civilian applications is a different beast entirely.
    - mrj 14y ago
      The problem can't always be left up to pure market forces, though. VCs do not fund projects that they don't believe will stand a chance of producing a large return. They may fund several ideas with a small chance, but a business that will provide for the greater good, cost a lot of money up front, and only provide small returns simply won't get funded. Sometimes government must be used to provide for the greater good or it won't happen at all. The greater good is often politically based, it's true. It may not be business-based at all. Fundamentally, a politician can use any issue as a talking point, and certainly, a politician that funds an idea that creates something good will use that for their own gain or another's detriment. But simply because an idea is politically based doesn't mean it is not worth pursuing, or that the business world would do it any better. In a way, this is what the government is doing in solar. Solar companies need to be funded and researched now before the market makes solar (and alternative energies in general) viable on a large scale. Right now solar is too expensive to produce and the price of oil gives little incentive to change habits. For the greater good, companies must be founded and research performed that will ultimately decimate the entire energy sector of the economy. Few VCs are going to be interested in destroying value, and yet we must do this before it is forced on us by the limits of the natural world. It is not a perfect vehicle but only the government has the pockets and patience to make that happen. Some will fail. That does not mean we should never try though. That means all those on the sidelines cheering for government failure should instead try to assist with better solutions and better oversight. Most are happier to criticize and make sweeping judgements though.
cs702 14y ago
Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicians, ideologues, and other interests who want to cut government spending.
- tjic 14y ago
  > verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US government pushed a piddly amount of funding into Arpanet or not. This is distinct from my take on rocket technology: I think that the market would NOT have perceived human spaceflight as worth doing, and if the US and Soviet governments had not pushed it, there might not yet be a person in orbit. Reasonable people can differ on whether the US government "caused" the internet or merely jumped in front of a parade and then later declared itself the leader. ...but your opinion that one of these is "verifiable" is nonsense.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    That's a completely different argument, though an interesting one to have. The WSJ editorial was not arguing that hypothetically the private sector could have created the internet, even though in actual fact it didn't. That's at least a plausible claim. But the WSJ instead argued, incorrectly, that the private sector did create the internet, without significant government involvement. The main justification seems to be a claim that Ethernet is an internetworking technology and was created by Xerox, and that ARPANET shouldn't be considered significant to this history. The article is very confused, and more or less just wrong, not making any sort of interesting point about historical contingency.
  - mfringel 14y ago
nathan_long 14y ago
The article's focus is on the internet itself, which is the "inter-network" - the interoperation of individual networks. The first of these networks was ARPANET, which was developed by contractors by the request and under the management of ARPA (since renamed DARPA). ARPA proposed ARPANET in 1968. So the government's pioneering work in networking goes back further than this article discusses. There is a complex history here; lots of people built on each other's work, inside and outside the US government and around the world. But it's silly to claim the US government gets no credit. Of course, the government is always full of conflicting opinions. ARPA's funding of something so speculative and not specifically for military application had to be finessed and described in military terms to satisfy some congress members. But ARPA itself was created with the mission of advanced research after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, so computer networking was really quite well within its mission. If anyone wants to learn more about this history, I recommend "Inventing the Internet" and "Where Wizards Stay Up Late." The former is a bit more academic and technical, but still easy to read, and the latter is a bit more focused on the people involved.
stox 14y ago
Personally, I believe that the Internet, as we know it, is a product of the ARPANET, the BBS communities, the UUCP communities, and the divestiture of AT&T.
- fpgeek 14y ago
  And two of the four were the result of direct action by the federal government, so they deserve more than a little credit.
russell 14y ago
And Al Gore invented the internet. Seriously, he sponsored the legislation that set up and funded the internet as a separate entity from NSFNET and (D)ARPANET. More government meddling that benefited no-one.
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  That's merely administrative partitioning, though. On the wire there's one big reachable address space which predated his involvement, and the creators' names appear on RFCs.
robomartin 14y ago
From the article: The U.S. government, including ARPA, NSF, DOE, NASA among others absolutely facilitated, underwrote, and pioneered the development of the Internet. The private sector engaged around 12 years into the program (about 1984-85) and was very much involved in powering the spread of the system. But none of this would have happened without this research support. I have great faith in the human ability to trench forward and evolve solutions to problems as well as innovate. This also leads to a belief that if person A does not invent or discover something then B, or C, or D eventually will invent or discover that same thing. Proof of this exists across many fields where nearly simultaneous discoveries or developments happened across the globe (powered flight?). It is clear that the interconnected network of computers that ultimately became the consumer Internet had its roots in a number of government-sponsored programs. At the same time, interconnected networks of USERS had already existed for quite some time. Examples of this were Compuserve and AOL, the myriad of BBS providers across the world and services like Minitel in France. It was this existing audience that provided the early adopters that made the Internet take off as a commercial product. Government couldn't have done that. More to the point: The US Government couldn't have made the Internet a commercial success available in every home and every city of the world. It was entrepreneurial drive across the globe that made this happen. If the US Government had kept control of it all it would have remained at a level and a scale not useful to anyone but a few literally well-connected sites. So, yes, kudos for letting go. Here's a perfect example of government getting the hell out of the way to see private enterprise take something well beyond anyone's imagination. I wish they'd do that with a myriad of other areas that government touches that would do far better in private hands. The Internet is a massive example of why government should not be involved in our activities beyond a very basic level. We can do a far better job. Getting back to the invention and discovery issue. I have no doubt that the Internet would have been developed privately if the government had not had any involvement whatsoever. It would have been different, or not, but the human drive to innovate and invent coupled with the equally powerful drive to connect, share and explore would have made it happen. It really isn't too far of a stretch to see that BBS systems would have sought to create more efficient and scalable topologies to reach and service more people. And, as computers and technology evolved this would have pushed the need for speed in order to provide media services.
defen 14y ago
This just goes to show that the Republicans are the Stupid Party. They should be embracing this! The Internet is but one of the many wonderful fruits of the military-industrial complex. Who was President when the Internet was created? Nixon/Ford! None of this would have been possible without close collaboration between the military and private industry, so we should give more public money to both of them.
nateabele 14y ago
Here's the thing about this entire debate: who gives a fuck? Yes, the government, the private sector, and academia (which is funded by both government and the private sector) all had a hand in developing the technologies that collectively comprise what we know today as the internet. But this debate isn't really about the internet. It's about the role of government and what constitutes a fair tax rate, which are two separate but related questions. When Obama talks about roads and bridges, or public education, or the internet, or whatever, what he's really saying is 'see all this awesome stuff government has done for you? You really owe us more money.' That might not be complete and utter bullshit if (a) government actually spent more than a tiny fraction of its revenue on those things and (b) if it wasn't an abject failure at everything else. Instead, the large majority of government spending goes to wars of aggression, debt service (aka extortion payments to major banks, or embezzlement, depending on how you look at it), and Social Security. As we know from the Bush Sr. era, Social Security is completely fucked. Much like the briefcase full of IOUs at the end of Dumb & Dumber, there isn't a single, actual dime in the program, because Congress has borrowed against every last one. Which brings us to the fundamental stupidity of what Obama's suggesting. And, seriously? We should give these people more money? Fuck you, sir.

79 points by smd4 14y ago

chris_wot 14y ago

Wow. Crovitz says that Ethernet was invented to "link different computer networks". How embarrassing for his argument!

nathan_long 14y ago
Yes. I was fascinated to learn recently that, as Cerf says, Ethernet was based on a broadcast network in Hawaii. Two interesting things about that: 1) Networking between local machines came after larger, more distributed networks. This seems odd to us who might walk around with 3 computers on our person, but in those days, you might have 1 computer per institution, and networking's goal was to allow better sharing of those scarce resources. 2) The Ethernet method of "broadcasting" every message to everyone on the network (absent a switch to filter traffic for individual hosts) seemed odd to me when I first heard it, but there's no other way to do it in a radio network, which is what Ethernet was based on.

TheGateKeeper 14y ago

WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer. Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.

lutze 14y ago
Fire him... Are you serious? Like the truth has ever mattered to Murdoch. This writer is exactly on message, they'll give him a bonus.
- mseebach 14y ago
  Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.
  - lutze 14y ago
    "BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?
    - mseebach 14y ago
      Good thing that's not what I said, then.
      - lutze 14y ago
        Your comment seemed quite sarcastic, and looked to be trying to equivocate responsibility. Not that I'm above using sarcasm myself, obviously. The fact is, that in this instance, a Murdoch owned media company is clearly distorting the truth to further a political agenda. So in this instance, it is perfectly reasonable to criticise Murdoch in particular, without having to resort to qualifications. In my opinion of course.
        mseebach 14y ago
        You implied causation between working for a Murdoch-owned media outlet and writing a column with a light take on the facts. That's fallacious, and that's why I called it out.
        lutze 14y ago
        No, I implied causation between working for a Murdoch owned media outlet and writing a column furthering a specific political agenda. The lying part is incidental really.
    - jamesbritt 14y ago
      ... so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism? It didn't sound like a defense, but an observation that, sadly, this is common behavior. I also suspect it was a sly reference to some of the comments on HN, too.
russell 14y ago
From the WSJ: "Gordon Crovitz is a media and information industry advisor and executive, including former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, executive vice president of Dow Jones and president of its Consumer Media Group." Not exactly a random stringer.

stuff4ben 14y ago

Key quote: "Cerf: I would happily fertilize my tomatoes with Crovitz' assertion."

biot 14y ago
The claim he's referencing: Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it languished...In less than a decade, private concerns have taken that protocol and created one of the most important technological revolutions of the millennia. Is Cerf's argument against the notion that it was private concerns that created the internet on top of a languishing protocol? That's valid, though it's certainly true that without the private sector investing in developing on top of the internet that it wouldn't be where it is today.
- gruseom 14y ago
  Government funded the basic R&D; industry commercialized it. Has there been any real controversy about the history? It doesn't seem so. It's just that some ideologues don't like some of the facts.
- mcguire 14y ago
  Let's see: 1975 (IIRC, TCP was somewhat later, but I'll be generous) plus 30 years would be 2005. The Boucher Bill was 1992, prior to that commercial traffic was not allowed on the ARPA/NSFNET. Now, I wasn't around for the early Internet, since it wasn't particularly common until the mid '80's, but "languish" is not how I would describe what I saw. At that time, it connected every research and most educational organizations and did almost everything it does now except carry specifically commercial traffic. HTTP was not developed until the early '90's, and there was essentially no private interest in the Internet until HTTP had become prevalent, except for what it was already doing: email, news, and file transfer. And between the introduction of commercial traffic and infrastructural improvements which were part of the dot-com boom, the Internet did those three things significantly less well than it had previously. So, yes it wouldn't be where it is today without private sector investing (particularly the massive infrastructure build-out in the late '90's). But "languish" for "30 years"? "Private concerns" created "technological revolutions"?

rondon1 14y ago

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." In this editorial this guy is hoping to convince people that the government was not responsible for setting the foundation of the internet.

delinka 14y ago
Agreed. I recall someone saying once upon a time (this is a personal anecdote, not something from public history) that it would be in company's best interests to educate employees and therefore we should let the private free market handle education while altogether abolishing public education. I can't comprehend why anyone couldn't see how public education (or at the very least heavily regulated, all-private education) is an ultimate benefit to society. You think 'government indoctrination' is bad now? How about when these corporations funding the schools start insisting that curricula be modified toward their own agendas? Or perhaps when they decide indentured servitude is the best way to get a 'return on investment' (i.e. we educated you/your kids for the last five years, you owe us five years of employment at reduced wages)? But that's not actually likely to happen if education were entirely privatized. No, because corporations are focused on returns now and their numbers for this quarter and spending on education cuts into the bottom line and the ROI doesn't happen for two decades. Then, the schools realizing that everyone needs an education and it needs to be funded, start calling for taxes to pay for universal education... It's a similar problem for pure research. No one knows if pure research will pay off. Ever. Sometimes, it pays off in fifty years. On odd occasions it pays off in less than ten. It seldom pays off in the next twelve months. Someone has to insist on pure research to move technology forward. Or we could all just stay like we are, use up our resources, and go back to living in caves.
twoodfin 14y ago
"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody serious is arguing we shouldn't have roads and bridges. How any of this is a justification for $1T deficits and real marginal tax rates that will approach 50+% is anyone's guess. It also sounded really bad coming out of the President's mouth. "I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. . It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." Hey, maybe being "so smart" and "working harder than everyone else" doesn't guarantee success, but at least most voters think those are pretty helpful in America, and may not appreciate anyone, least of all the President, sneering at them.

newbie12 14y ago

A little funding for basic computer science research is not big government. Bailing out banks and giving private solar companies loans is big government.

HotKFreshSwag 14y ago
A "little funding", are you serious? DARPA is part of the freaking DoD. Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site. Yeah, companies fail. Yeah, the American government invests in American companies. Yeah, the American government can afford it. Right now the US treasury bonds that are indexed to inflation have negative interest rates[1]. Investors are _paying_ Uncle Sam money to take care of their money. The market is telling the government: invest, invest, invest. 1. http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/pages/textview.aspx?data=realyield http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/in...
- astine 14y ago
  "Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site." I am. The government is not a VC firm. It's investment are invariably political and not business based. There's a huge potential for waste there, not to mention conflict of interest. A DoD project that happened to have civilian applications is a different beast entirely.
  - mrj 14y ago
    The problem can't always be left up to pure market forces, though. VCs do not fund projects that they don't believe will stand a chance of producing a large return. They may fund several ideas with a small chance, but a business that will provide for the greater good, cost a lot of money up front, and only provide small returns simply won't get funded. Sometimes government must be used to provide for the greater good or it won't happen at all. The greater good is often politically based, it's true. It may not be business-based at all. Fundamentally, a politician can use any issue as a talking point, and certainly, a politician that funds an idea that creates something good will use that for their own gain or another's detriment. But simply because an idea is politically based doesn't mean it is not worth pursuing, or that the business world would do it any better. In a way, this is what the government is doing in solar. Solar companies need to be funded and researched now before the market makes solar (and alternative energies in general) viable on a large scale. Right now solar is too expensive to produce and the price of oil gives little incentive to change habits. For the greater good, companies must be founded and research performed that will ultimately decimate the entire energy sector of the economy. Few VCs are going to be interested in destroying value, and yet we must do this before it is forced on us by the limits of the natural world. It is not a perfect vehicle but only the government has the pockets and patience to make that happen. Some will fail. That does not mean we should never try though. That means all those on the sidelines cheering for government failure should instead try to assist with better solutions and better oversight. Most are happier to criticize and make sweeping judgements though.

cs702 14y ago

Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicians, ideologues, and other interests who want to cut government spending.

tjic 14y ago
> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US government pushed a piddly amount of funding into Arpanet or not. This is distinct from my take on rocket technology: I think that the market would NOT have perceived human spaceflight as worth doing, and if the US and Soviet governments had not pushed it, there might not yet be a person in orbit. Reasonable people can differ on whether the US government "caused" the internet or merely jumped in front of a parade and then later declared itself the leader. ...but your opinion that one of these is "verifiable" is nonsense.
- _delirium 14y ago
  That's a completely different argument, though an interesting one to have. The WSJ editorial was not arguing that hypothetically the private sector could have created the internet, even though in actual fact it didn't. That's at least a plausible claim. But the WSJ instead argued, incorrectly, that the private sector did create the internet, without significant government involvement. The main justification seems to be a claim that Ethernet is an internetworking technology and was created by Xerox, and that ARPANET shouldn't be considered significant to this history. The article is very confused, and more or less just wrong, not making any sort of interesting point about historical contingency.
- mfringel 14y ago

nathan_long 14y ago

The article's focus is on the internet itself, which is the "inter-network" - the interoperation of individual networks. The first of these networks was ARPANET, which was developed by contractors by the request and under the management of ARPA (since renamed DARPA). ARPA proposed ARPANET in 1968. So the government's pioneering work in networking goes back further than this article discusses. There is a complex history here; lots of people built on each other's work, inside and outside the US government and around the world. But it's silly to claim the US government gets no credit. Of course, the government is always full of conflicting opinions. ARPA's funding of something so speculative and not specifically for military application had to be finessed and described in military terms to satisfy some congress members. But ARPA itself was created with the mission of advanced research after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik, so computer networking was really quite well within its mission. If anyone wants to learn more about this history, I recommend "Inventing the Internet" and "Where Wizards Stay Up Late." The former is a bit more academic and technical, but still easy to read, and the latter is a bit more focused on the people involved.

stox 14y ago

Personally, I believe that the Internet, as we know it, is a product of the ARPANET, the BBS communities, the UUCP communities, and the divestiture of AT&T.

fpgeek 14y ago
And two of the four were the result of direct action by the federal government, so they deserve more than a little credit.

russell 14y ago

And Al Gore invented the internet. Seriously, he sponsored the legislation that set up and funded the internet as a separate entity from NSFNET and (D)ARPANET. More government meddling that benefited no-one.

prodigal_erik 14y ago
That's merely administrative partitioning, though. On the wire there's one big reachable address space which predated his involvement, and the creators' names appear on RFCs.

robomartin 14y ago

From the article: The U.S. government, including ARPA, NSF, DOE, NASA among others absolutely facilitated, underwrote, and pioneered the development of the Internet. The private sector engaged around 12 years into the program (about 1984-85) and was very much involved in powering the spread of the system. But none of this would have happened without this research support. I have great faith in the human ability to trench forward and evolve solutions to problems as well as innovate. This also leads to a belief that if person A does not invent or discover something then B, or C, or D eventually will invent or discover that same thing. Proof of this exists across many fields where nearly simultaneous discoveries or developments happened across the globe (powered flight?). It is clear that the interconnected network of computers that ultimately became the consumer Internet had its roots in a number of government-sponsored programs. At the same time, interconnected networks of USERS had already existed for quite some time. Examples of this were Compuserve and AOL, the myriad of BBS providers across the world and services like Minitel in France. It was this existing audience that provided the early adopters that made the Internet take off as a commercial product. Government couldn't have done that. More to the point: The US Government couldn't have made the Internet a commercial success available in every home and every city of the world. It was entrepreneurial drive across the globe that made this happen. If the US Government had kept control of it all it would have remained at a level and a scale not useful to anyone but a few literally well-connected sites. So, yes, kudos for letting go. Here's a perfect example of government getting the hell out of the way to see private enterprise take something well beyond anyone's imagination. I wish they'd do that with a myriad of other areas that government touches that would do far better in private hands. The Internet is a massive example of why government should not be involved in our activities beyond a very basic level. We can do a far better job. Getting back to the invention and discovery issue. I have no doubt that the Internet would have been developed privately if the government had not had any involvement whatsoever. It would have been different, or not, but the human drive to innovate and invent coupled with the equally powerful drive to connect, share and explore would have made it happen. It really isn't too far of a stretch to see that BBS systems would have sought to create more efficient and scalable topologies to reach and service more people. And, as computers and technology evolved this would have pushed the need for speed in order to provide media services.

defen 14y ago

This just goes to show that the Republicans are the Stupid Party. They should be embracing this! The Internet is but one of the many wonderful fruits of the military-industrial complex. Who was President when the Internet was created? Nixon/Ford! None of this would have been possible without close collaboration between the military and private industry, so we should give more public money to both of them.

nateabele 14y ago

Here's the thing about this entire debate: who gives a fuck? Yes, the government, the private sector, and academia (which is funded by both government and the private sector) all had a hand in developing the technologies that collectively comprise what we know today as the internet. But this debate isn't really about the internet. It's about the role of government and what constitutes a fair tax rate, which are two separate but related questions. When Obama talks about roads and bridges, or public education, or the internet, or whatever, what he's really saying is 'see all this awesome stuff government has done for you? You really owe us more money.' That might not be complete and utter bullshit if (a) government actually spent more than a tiny fraction of its revenue on those things and (b) if it wasn't an abject failure at everything else. Instead, the large majority of government spending goes to wars of aggression, debt service (aka extortion payments to major banks, or embezzlement, depending on how you look at it), and Social Security. As we know from the Bush Sr. era, Social Security is completely fucked. Much like the briefcase full of IOUs at the end of Dumb & Dumber, there isn't a single, actual dime in the program, because Congress has borrowed against every last one. Which brings us to the fundamental stupidity of what Obama's suggesting. And, seriously? We should give these people more money? Fuck you, sir.