History of the Internet and its Development

It was intriguing to explore the events that led to the internet’s formation. Being naïve, I wasn’t aware that war and defence was the contributing factor behind the eventual explosion that strengthened and ensured the world would be forever linked by its vast array of networks.

Prior to the two World Wars, communication was extremely primitive. This compromised different countries in war, whose intelligence bases could bombed. This would have a great detrimental effect on the nation’s eventual fortunes. Varying nations recognized the need to protect their assets – the Soviet Union and the United States of America in particular, as the Cold War progressed.

The United States developed the SAGE network, which could detect aircraft and missiles crossing American borders. The Soviet Union undertook the Sputnik program in space, which comprised the SAGE network, as it didn’t detect missiles being released from space. This itself sped up the progress of the United States’ NASA program.

All of America’s advancements were formed around making its wealth of intelligence indestructible – surviving a nuclear war. The Pentagon itself is built specifically to withstand bombing. A 1964 paper ‘On Distributed Communication Networks’, states that these networks are to be built robust, non-hierarchical, flexible, digital with high levels of survivability.

The internet was formulated by the USA as a network to store and share files within the military. Links were eventually made with four universities. Until the internet was compromised by computer hackers (such as Julian Assange who accessed and viewed potentially detrimental information), the military continued to use the one network. When sensitive information began to leak, the US government generated separate internets exclusive to themselves. Having no use for their original, expensive internet program, the government released the internet to the public.

This lecture was invaluable in understanding the processes that shaped the networks that exist today – and their intended uses. Even in the worst days on earth, through the two World Wars, benefits emerged that have contributed to the internationalization of the world today. This internationalization has led to greater understandings of cultures different from ours, creating bonds that could not have existed in the pre-internet era. Its captivating thinking how a war of hate, could have led to bonds of peace that were never previously thought imaginable. Treasure troves of information are operable at the click of a button; we're becoming more and more informed by the day. Who could have imagined these benefits occurring when the US originally formulated the internet as a matter of defence?