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Contrary to Obama's lie about government creating the Internet......
Who Really Invented the Internet?
Contrary to legend, it wasn't the federal government, and the Internet had nothing to do with maintaining communications during a war.
A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." He justified elevating bureaucrats over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet."
It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.
The "invention" of the internet is far more complex than Obama would like you to think. However, inventing the internet would have been a much better example of a bunch of folks working together to make things happen.
Contrary to Obama's lie about government creating the Internet......
Who Really Invented the Internet?
Contrary to legend, it wasn't the federal government, and the Internet had nothing to do with maintaining communications during a war.
A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." He justified elevating bureaucrats over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet."
It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.
I always had a problem with the claim that the government created the internet. I was an avid computer hobbyist in the early 80's when the whole PC thing started (we called them 'microcomputers.' 'PC' didn't really catch on till the IBM PC came out, I think around 1982. The real genesis to me was with something called BBS systems, which was popularized by a hobbyist named Ward Christensen in Chicago. He wrote the software in 8086 assembly language and I believe it was distributed for free. It was all a labor of love. IIRC he worked for IBM, but it was a long time ago, and I can't recall for sure. People would connect via modem, typically 1200 baud.
That was the first widespread use of computers owned and used by the average joe to communicate with other home users, share tips, data etc. There were also a few attempts by companies to provide modem accesible services, such as Compuserve, but none were very popular or successful.
Anyway, after that the idea of the internet was inevitable. It was just a matter of more powerful hardware and time. And it was done by a private hobbyist with zero gov't involvement. So I would argue that if anyone 'invented the internet' it was Ward Christensen. Actually it kind of invented itself. Given the introduction of microcomputers in the 70's, and the fact that people were using modems with them almost from the start. It was inevitable that something like the internet would come about.
Perhaps next time Crovitz can try having some idea what he's talking about.
What did they tear down? Looks like they just added additional information.
But what your link fails to recognize is that it was Leonard Kleinrock of MIT had published the first paper on packet switching theory in the early 1960's, which DARPA used as a platform, and it was UCLA and Stanford who managed to send the first message, not the government.
What I'd always read was that the concept was developed as a collaborative effort between government and industry in the early 60s. The DOD and university systems came up with the early technology/basic research, and it was further applied and refined by industry. Wikipedia, for what it's worth, seems to back that up. I think calling the involvement of the department of defense, MIT and UC Berkley an "urban legend" pretty much shoots the credibility of your article to pieces.
For the record, most of the big advances we've made have come out of government creating basic research, and giving it to industry, who in turn does the applied research to turn it into products.
Last edited by mb1547; 07-24-2012 at 08:18 PM..
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