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[ 1950s ]
[ 1960s ]
[ 1970s ]
[ 1980s ]
[ 1990s ]
[ 2000s ]
Hobbes' Internet Timeline v5.6
1950s TOP
1957
USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA), the following year, within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead
in science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)
1960s TOP
1961
Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" (May 31)
� First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory
1962
J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: "On-Line Man Computer Communication" (August)
� Galactic Network concept encompassing distributed social interactions
1964
Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"
� Packet-switching networks; no single outage point
1965
ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers"
� TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and AN/FSQ-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA)
are directly linked (without packet switches) via a dedicated 1200bps phone line; Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC) computer at ARPA later added to form "The Experimental Network"
1966
Lawrence G. Roberts, MIT: "Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers" (October)
� First ARPANET plan
1967
ARPANET design discussions held by Larry Roberts at ARPA IPTO PI meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (April)
ACM Symposium on Operating Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (October)
� First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts: "Multiple Computer Networks and
Intercomputer Communication
� First meeting of the three independent packet network teams (RAND, NPL, ARPA)
National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under Donald Watts
Davies who coins the term packet. The NPL network, an experiment in packet-switching, used 768kbps lines
1968
PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
Request for proposals for ARPANET sent out in August; responses received in September
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) awarded Network Measurement Center contract in October
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) awarded Packet Switch contract to build Interface Message
Processors (IMPs)
US Senator Edward Kennedy sends a congratulatory telegram to BBN for its million-dollar ARPA contract
to build the "Interfaith" Message Processor, and thanking them for their ecumenical efforts
Network Working Group (NWG), headed by Steve Crocker, loosely organized to develop host level
protocols for communication over the ARPANET. (:vgc:)
Tymnet built as part of Tymshare service (:vgc:)
1969
ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
Nodes are stood up as BBN builds each IMP [Honeywell DDP-516 mini computer with 12K of memory];
AT&T provides 50kbps lines
Node 1: UCLA (30 August, hooked up 2 September)
� Function: Network Measurement Center
� System,OS: SDS SIGMA 7, SEX
� Diagram of the first host to IMP connection
Node 2: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (1 October)
� Network Information Center (NIC)
� SDS940/Genie
� Doug Engelbart's project on "Augmentation of Human Intellect"
Node 3: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) (1 November)
� Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics
� IBM 360/75, OS/MVT
Node 4: University of Utah (December)
� Graphics
� DEC PDP-10, Tenex
First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker (7 April)
First packets sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he tried logging into SRI. The first attempt resulted
in the system crashing as the letter G of LOGIN was entered. (October 29)
Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish X.25-based Merit network for students,
faculty, alumni (:sw1:)
1970s TOP
1970
First publication of the original ARPANET Host-Host protocol: C.S. Carr, S. Crocker, V.G. Cerf,
"HOST-HOST Communication Protocol in the ARPA Network," in AFIPS Proceedings of SJCC (:vgc:)
First report on ARPANET at AFIPS: "Computer Network Development to Achieve Resource Sharing" (March)
ALOHAnet, the first packet radio network, developed by Norman Abramson, Univ of Hawaii, becomes
operational (July) (:sk2:)
� connected to the ARPANET in 1972
ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP), first host-to-host protocol
First cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and BBN at 56kbps. This line is later
replaced by another between BBN and RAND. A second line is added between MIT and Utah
1971
15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab,
Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames BBN starts building IMPs using the cheaper Honeywell 316.
IMPs however are limited to 4 host connections, and so BBN develops a terminal IMP (TIP) that
supports up to 64 terminals (September)
Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across a distributed network.
The original program was derived from two others: an intra-machine email program (SENDMSG)
and an experimental file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)
1972
Ray Tomlinson (BBN) modifies email program for ARPANET where it becomes a quick hit.
The @ sign was chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype for
its "at" meaning (March)
Larry Roberts writes first email management program (RD) to list, selectively read,
file, forward, and respond to messages (July)
International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC) at the Washington D.C.
Hilton with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface
Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn. (October)
First computer-to-computer chat takes place at UCLA, and is repeated during ICCC, as
psychotic PARRY (at Stanford) discusses its problems with the Doctor (at BBN).
International Network Working Group (INWG) formed in October as a result of a meeting at
ICCC identifying the need for a combined effort in advancing networking technologies.
Vint Cerf appointed first Chair. By 1974, INWG became IFIP WG 6.1 (:vgc:)
Louis Pouzin leads the French effort to build its own ARPANET - CYCLADES
1973
First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England)
via NORSAR (Norway)
Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet. The concept was tested
on Xerox PARC's Alto computers, and the first Ethernet network called the Alto Aloha
System (May) (:amk:)
Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton
Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in a San Francisco hotel lobby (:vgc:)
Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:)
RFC 454: File Transfer specification
Network Voice Protocol (NVP) specification (RFC 741) and implementation enabling conference calls over
ARPAnet. (:bb1:)
SRI (NIC) begins publishing ARPANET News in March; number of ARPANET users estimated at 2,000
ARPA study shows email composing 75% of all ARPANET traffic Christmas Day Lockup - Harvard IMP hardware
problem leads it to broadcast zero-length hops to any ARPANET destination, causing all other
IMPs to send their traffic to Harvard (25 December)
1974
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" which specified in
detail the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:)
BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial version of ARPANET) (:sk2:)
1975
Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)
First ARPANET mailing list, MsgGroup, is created by Steve Walker. Einar Stefferud soon took over
as moderator as the list was not automated at first. A science fiction list, SF-Lovers, was to
become the most popular unofficial list in the early days
John Vittal develops MSG, the first all-inclusive email program providing replying,
forwarding, and filing capabilities.
Satellite links cross two oceans (to Hawaii and UK) as the first TCP tests are run over them by
Stanford, BBN, and UCL
"Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:)
Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (:pds:)
1976
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an email on 26 March from the Royal
Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern
UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.
Multiprocessing Pluribus IMPs are deployed
1977
THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at Univ of Wisconsin providing electronic mail to over 100
researchers in computer science (using a locally developed email system over TELENET)
RFC 733: Mail specification
Tymshare spins out Tymnet under pressure from TELENET. Both go on to develop X.25 protocol standard
for virtual circuit style packet switching (:vgc:)
First demonstration of ARPANET/SF Bay Packet Radio Net/Atlantic SATNET operation of Internet protocols with
BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:)
1978
TCP split into TCP and IP (March)
RFC 748: TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option
1979
Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, National Science Foundation (NSF), and computer scientists from
many universities to establish a Computer Science Department research computer network (organized
by Larry Landweber).
USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin.
All original groups were under net.* hierarchy.
First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex ARPA establishes the Internet
Configuration Control Board (ICCB)
Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding. Most communications take place
between mobile vans. ARPANET connection via SRI.
On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie emails the MsgGroup a suggestion of adding some emotion back into the
dry text medium of email, such as -) for indicating a sentence was tongue-in-cheek. Though flamed by
many at the time, emoticons became widely used
1980s TOP
1980
ARPANET grinds to a complete halt on 27 October because of an accidentally-propagated
status-message virus
First C/30-based IMP at BBN
1981
BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork"
� Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York, with the first connection to
Yale (:feg:)
� Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in reference to the free NJE protocols
provided with the IBM systems
� Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute information, as well as file transfers
CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of computer scientists and Univ of Delaware,
Purdue Univ, Univ of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by NSF to provide
networking services (especially email) to university scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later
becomes known as the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:)
C/30 IMPs predominate the network; first C/30 TIP at SAC
Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by France Telecom.
True Names by Vernor Vinge (:pds:)
RFC 801: NCP/TCP Transition Plan
1982
Norway leaves network to become an Internet connection via TCP/IP over SATNET; UCL does the same
DCA and ARPA establish the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), as the
protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, for ARPANET. (:vgc:)
� This leads to one of the first definitions of an "internet" as a connected set of networks,
specifically those using TCP/IP, and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.
� DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD (:vgc:)
EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email and USENET services. (:glg:)
� original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK
Exterior Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is used for gateways between networks.
1983
Name server developed at Univ of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users to know the exact path to
other systems
Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January)
No more Honeywell or Pluribus IMPs; TIPs replaced by TACs (terminal access controller)
Stuttgart and Korea get connected
Movement Information Net (MINET) started early in the year in Europe, connected to Internet in Sept
CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place
ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated with the Defense Data Network
created the previous year. 68 of the 113 existing nodes went to MILNET
Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX (4.2 BSD) which includes IP
networking software (:mpc:)
Networking needs switch from having a single, large time sharing computer connected to the Internet
at each site, to instead connecting entire local networks
Internet Activities Board (IAB) established, replacing ICCB
EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very similar to the way BITNET works with
a gateway funded by IBM
FidoNet developed by Tom Jennings
1984
Domain Name System (DNS) introduced
Number of hosts breaks 1,000
JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP
JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the Coloured Book protocols; previously SERCnet
Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Canada begins a one-year effort to network its universities. The NetNorth Network is connected to BITNET in
Ithaca from Toronto (:kf1:)
Kremvax message announcing USSR connectivity to USENET
1985
Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) started
Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at USC is given responsibility for DNS root management by DCA, and
SRI for DNS NIC registrations
Symbolics.com is assigned on 15 March to become the first registered domain. Other firsts: cmu.edu,
purdue.edu, rice.edu, berkeley.edu, ucla.edu, rutgers.edu, bbn.com (24 Apr); mit.edu (23 May);
think.com (24 may); css.gov (June); mitre.org, .uk (July)
100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada railroad, the last Canadian
university is connected to NetNorth in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:)
RFC 968: 'Twas the Night Before Start-up
1986
NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)
� NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing power for all
(JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell).
� This allows an explosion of connections, especially from universities.
NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational (:sw1:)
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) comes into existence
under the IAB. First IETF meeting held in January at Linkabit in San Diego
The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the auspices of the Society for Public Access
Computing (SoPAC). Later Freenet program management assumed by the National Public Telecomputing Network
(NPTN) in 1989 (:sk2,rab:)
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet news performance over TCP/IP.
Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.
The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987.
BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high speed links. Operational in 1987.
New England gets cut off from the Net as AT&T suffers a fiber optics cable break between Newark/NJ
and White Plains/NY. Yes, all seven New England ARPANET trunk lines were in the one severed cable.
Outage took place between 1:11 and 12:11 EST on 12 December
1987
NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone with Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI
involvement was through an agreement with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.
UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and Usenet access. Originally an
experiment by Rick Adams and Mike O'Dell
First TCP/IP Interoperability Conference (March), name changed in 1988 to INTEROP
Email link established between Germany and China using CSNET protocols, with the first message from
China sent on 20 September. (:wz1:)
The concept and plan for a national US research and education network is proposed by Gordon Bell et al
in a report to the Office of Science and Technology, written in response to a congressional request by
Al Gore. (Nov) It would take four years until the establishment of this network by Congress (:gb1:)
1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide"
Number of hosts breaks 10,000
Number of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000
1988
2 November - Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000 of the 60,000 hosts
on the Internet (:ph1:)
CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) formed by DARPA in response to the needs exhibited during the
Morris worm incident. The worm is the only advisory issued this year.
DoD chooses to adopt OSI and sees use of TCP/IP as an interim. US Government OSI Profile (GOSIP)
defines the set of protocols to be supported by Government purchased products (:gck:)
Los Nettos network created with no federal funding, instead supported by regional members (founding:
Caltech, TIS, UCLA, USC, ISI).
NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps)
CERFnet (California Education and Research Federation network) founded by Susan Estrada.
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established in December with Jon Postel as its Director.
Postel was also the RFC Editor and US Domain registrar for many years.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed by Jarkko Oikarinen (:zby:)
First Canadian regionals join NSFNET: ONet via Cornell, RISQ via Princeton, BCnet via Univ of
Washington (:ec1:)
FidoNet gets connected to the Net, enabling the exchange of email and news (:tp1:)
The first multicast tunnel is established between Stanford and BBN in the Summer of 1988.
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Canada (CA), Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), France (FR), Iceland (IS),
Norway (NO), Sweden (SE)
1989
Number of hosts breaks 100,000
RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) formed (by European service providers) to ensure the necessary
administrative and technical coordination to allow the operation of the pan-European IP Network. (:glg:)
First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet: MCI Mail through the
Corporation for the National Research Initiative (CNRI), and CompuServe through Ohio State Univ (:jg1,ph1:)
Corporation for Research and Education Networking (CREN) is formed by merging CSNET into BITNET (August)
AARNET - Australian Academic Research Network - set up by AVCC and CSIRO; introduced into service
the following year (:gmc:)
First link between Australia and NSFNET via Hawaii on 23 June
Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll tells the real-life tale of a German cracker group who infiltrated
numerous US facilities
UCLA sponsors the Act One symposium to celebrate ARPANET's 20th anniversary and its decommissioning (August)
RFC 1121: Act One - The Poems
RFC 1097: TELNET SUBLIMINAL-MESSAGE Option
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Australia (AU), Germany (DE), Israel (IL), Italy (IT), Japan (JP),
Mexico (MX), Netherlands (NL), New Zealand (NZ), Puerto Rico (PR), United Kingdom (UK)
1990s TOP
1990
ARPANET ceases to exist
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is founded by Mitch Kapor
Archie released by Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan at McGill
Hytelnet released by Peter Scott (Univ of Saskatchewan)
The World comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the first commercial provider of Internet dial-up access
ISO Development Environment (ISODE) developed to provide an approach for OSI migration for the DoD.
ISODE software allows OSI application to operate over TCP/IP (:gck:)
CA*net formed by 10 regional networks as national Canadian backbone with direct connection to NSFNET (:ec1:)
The first remotely operated machine to be hooked up to the Internet, the Internet Toaster by John
Romkey, (controlled via SNMP) makes its debut at Interop.
RFC 1149: A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers. Implementation is
completed 11 years later by the Bergen Linux Users Group (28 Apr 2001)
RFC 1178: Choosing a Name for Your Computer
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Argentina (AR), Austria (AT), Belgium (BE), Brazil (BR), Chile (CL),
Greece (GR), India (IN), Ireland (IE), Korea (KR), Spain (ES), Switzerland (CH)
1991
First connection takes place between Brazil, by Fapesp, and the Internet at 9600 baud.
Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association, Inc. formed by General Atomics (CERFnet),
Performance Systems International, Inc. (PSInet), and UUNET Technologies, Inc. (AlterNet),
after NSF lifts restrictions on the commercial use of the Net (March) (:glg:)
Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), invented by Brewster Kahle, released by Thinking Machines Corporation
Gopher released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the Univ of Minnesota
World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer (:pb1:)
PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) released by Philip Zimmerman (:ad1:)
US High Performance Computing Act (Gore 1) establishes the National Research and Education Network (NREN)
NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)
NSFNET traffic passes 1 trillion bytes/month and 10 billion packets/month
Defense Data Network NIC contract awarded by DISA to Government Systems Inc. who takes over from SRI in May
Start of JANET IP Service (JIPS) which signaled the changeover from Coloured Book software to TCP/IP
within the UK academic network. IP was initially 'tunneled' within X.25. (:gst:)
RFC 1216: Gigabit Network Economics and Paradigm Shifts
RFC 1217: Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR)
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Croatia (HR), Czech Republic (CZ), Hong Kong (HK), Hungary (HU),
Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Singapore (SG), South Africa (ZA), Taiwan (TW), Tunisia (TN)
1992
Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered (January)
IAB reconstituted as the Internet Architecture Board and becomes part of the Internet Society
Number of hosts breaks 1,000,000
First MBONE audio multicast (March) and video multicast (November)
RIPE Network Coordination Center (NCC) created in April to provide address registration and coordination
services to the European Internet community (:dk1:)
Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by Univ of Nevada
World Bank comes on-line
The term "surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly (:jap:)
Zen and the Art of the Internet is published by Brendan Kehoe (:jap:)
Internet Hunt started by Rick Gates
RFC 1300: Remembrances of Things Past
RFC 1313: Today's Programming for KRFC AM 1313 - Internet Talk Radio
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Antarctica (AQ), Cameroon (CM), Cyprus (CY), Ecuador (EC), Estonia (EE),
Kuwait (KW), Latvia (LV), Luxembourg (LU), Malaysia (MY), Slovakia (SK), Slovenia (SI), Thailand (TH),
Venezuela (VE)
1993
InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: (:sc1:)
� directory and database services (AT&T)
� registration services (Network Solutions Inc.)
� information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)
US White House comes on-line (http://www.whitehouse.gov/):
� President Bill Clinton: [email protected]
� Vice-President Al Gore: [email protected]
Worms of a new kind find their way around the Net - WWW Worms (W4), joined by Spiders, Wanderers,
Crawlers, and Snakes ...
Internet Talk Radio begins broadcasting (:sk2:)
United Nations (UN) comes on-line (:vgc:)
US National Information Infrastructure Act
Businesses and media begin taking notice of the Internet
InterCon International KK (IIKK) provides Japan's first commercial Internet connection in September.
TWICS, though an IIKK leased line, begins offering dial-up accounts the following month (:tb1:)
Mosaic takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634% annual growth rate of service
traffic. Gopher's growth is 997%.
RFC 1437: The Extension of MIME Content-Types to a New Medium
RFC 1438: IETF Statements of Boredom (SOBs)
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Bulgaria (BG), Costa Rica (CR), Egypt (EG), Fiji (FJ), Ghana (GH),
Guam (GU), Indonesia (ID), Kazakhstan (KZ), Kenya (KE), Liechtenstein (LI), Peru (PE), Romania (RO),
Russian Federation (RU), Turkey (TR), Ukraine (UA), UAE (AE), US Virgin Islands (VI)
1994
ARPANET/Internet celebrates 25th anniversary
Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet (Lexington and Cambridge, Mass., USA)
US Senate and House provide information servers
Shopping malls arrive on the Internet
First cyberstation, RT-FM, broadcasts from Interop in Las Vegas
The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that GOSIP should incorporate
TCP/IP and drop the "OSI-only" requirement (:gck:)
Arizona law firm of Canter & Siegel "spams" the Internet with email advertising green card lottery
services; Net citizens flame back
NSFNET traffic passes 10 trillion bytes/month
Yes, it's true - you can now order pizza from the Hut online
WWW edges out telnet to become 2nd most popular service on the Net (behind ftp-data) based on % of
packets and bytes traffic distribution on NSFNET
Japanese Prime Minister on-line (http://www.kantei.go.jp/)
UK's HM Treasury on-line (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/)
New Zealand's Info Tech Prime Minister on-line (http://www.govt.nz/)
First Virtual, the first cyberbank, open up for business
Radio stations start rockin' (rebroadcasting) round the clock on the Net: WXYC at Univ of NC, KJHK at
Univ of KS-Lawrence, KUGS at Western WA Univ
IPng recommended by IETF at its Toronto meeting (July) and approved by IESG in November. Later
documented as RFC 1752
The first banner ads appear on hotwired.com in October. They were for Zima (a beverage) and AT&T
Trans-European Research and Education Network Association (TERENA) is formed by the merger of RARE and
EARN, with representatives from 38 countries as well as CERN and ECMWF. TERENA's aim is to "promote and
participate in the development of a high quality international information and telecommunications
infrastructure for the benefit of research and education" (October)
After noticing that many network software vendors used domain.com in their documentation examples,
Bill Woodcock and Jon Postel register the domain. Sure enough, after looking at the domain access logs,
it was evident that many users were using the example domain in configuring their applications.
RFC 1605: SONET to Sonnet Translation
RFC 1606: A Historical Perspective On The Usage Of IP Version 9
RFC 1607: A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Algeria (DZ), Armenia (AM), Bermuda (BM), Burkina Faso (BF), China (CN),
Colombia (CO), Jamaica (JM), Jordan (JO), Lebanon (LB), Lithuania (LT), Macao (MO), Morocco (MA),
New Caledonia (NC), Nicaragua (NI), Niger (NE), Panama (PA), Philippines (PH), Senegal (SN),
Sri Lanka (LK), Swaziland (SZ), Uruguay (UY), Uzbekistan (UZ)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, uk, gov, de, ca, mil, au, org, net
1995
NSFNET reverts back to a research network. Main US backbone traffic now routed through interconnected
network providers
The new NSFNET is born as NSF establishes the very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS)
linking super-computing centers: NCAR, NCSA, SDSC, CTC, PSC
Neda Rayaneh Institute (NRI), Iran's first commercial provider, comes online, connecting via satellite
to Cadvision, a Canadian provider (:rm1:)
Hong Kong police disconnect all but one of the colony's Internet providers for failure to obtain a license;
thousands of users are left without service (:kf2:)
Sun launches JAVA on May 23
RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time
Radio HK, the first commercial 24 hr., Internet-only radio station starts broadcasting
WWW surpasses ftp-data in March as the service with greatest traffic on NSFNet based on packet count,
and in April based on byte count
Traditional online dial-up systems (CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access
Thousands in Minneapolis-St. Paul (USA) lose Net access after transients start a bonfire under a bridge at
the Univ of MN causing fiber-optic cables to melt (30 July)
A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading the pack with the 3rd largest ever
NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)
Registration of domain names is no longer free. Beginning 14 September, a $50 annual fee has been
imposed, which up until now was subsidized by NSF. NSF continues to pay for .edu registration, and on an
interim basis for .gov
The Vatican comes on-line (http://www.vatican.va/)
The Canadian Government comes on-line (http://canada.gc.ca/)
The first official Internet wiretap was successful in helping the Secret Service and Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) apprehend three individuals who were illegally manufacturing and selling cell phone cloning
equipment and electronic devices
Operation Home Front connects, for the first time, soldiers in the field with their families back home
via the Internet.
Richard White becomes the first person to be declared a munition, under the USA's arms export control laws,
because of an RSA file security encryption program tattooed on his arm (:wired496:)
RFC 1882: The 12-Days of Technology Before Christmas
Country domains registered: Ethiopia (ET), Cote d'Ivoire (CI), Cook Islands (CK) Cayman Islands (KY),
Anguilla (AI), Gibraltar (GI), Vatican (VA), Kiribati (KI), Kyrgyzstan (KG), Madagascar (MG), Mauritius (MU),
Micronesia (FM), Monaco (MC), Mongolia (MN), Nepal (NP), Nigeria (NG), Western Samoa (WS), San Marino (SM),
Tanzania (TZ), Tonga (TO), Uganda (UG), Vanuatu (VU)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, gov, mil, org, de, uk, ca, au
Technologies of the Year: WWW, Search engines
Emerging Technologies: Mobile code (JAVA, JAVAscript), Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools
Hacks of the Year: The Spot (Jun 12), Hackers Movie Page (12 Aug)
1996
Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies who ask the US Congress to
ban the technology (which has been around for years)
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat, and Phillipine President Fidel
Ramos meet for ten minutes in an online interactive chat session on 17 January.
The controversial US Communications Decency Act (CDA) becomes law in the US in order to prohibit
distribution of indecent materials over the Net. A few months later a three-judge panel imposes an
injunction against its enforcement. Supreme Court unanimously rules most of it unconstitutional in 1997.
9,272 organizations find themselves unlisted after the InterNIC drops their name service as a result of
not having paid their domain name fee
Various ISPs suffer extended service outages, bringing into question whether they will be able to
handle the growing number of users. AOL (19 hours), Netcom (13 hours), AT&T WorldNet (28 hours - email only)
Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for US$15,000
New York's Public Access Networks Corp (PANIX) is shut down after repeated SYN attacks by a cracker
using methods outlined in a hacker magazine (2600)
MCI upgrades Internet backbone adding ~13,000 ports, bringing the effective speed from 155Mbps to 622Mbps.
The Internet Ad Hoc Committee announces plans to add 7 new generic Top Level Domains (gTLD): .firm, .store,
.web, .arts, .rec, .info, .nom. The IAHC plan also calls for a competing group of domain registrars worldwide.
A malicious cancelbot is released on USENET wiping out more than 25,000 messages
The WWW browser war, fought primarily between Netscape and Microsoft, has rushed in a new age in software
development, whereby new releases are made quarterly with the help of Internet users eager to test
upcoming (beta) versions.
RFC 1925: The Twelve Networking Truths
Restrictions on Internet use around the world:
� China: requires users and ISPs to register with the police
� Germany: cuts off access to some newsgroups carried on CompuServe
� Saudi Arabia: confines Internet access to universities and hospitals
� Singapore: requires political and religious content providers to register with the state
� New Zealand: classifies computer disks as "publications" that can be censored and seized
� source: Human Rights Watch
Country domains registered: Qatar (QA), Central frican Republic (CF), Oman (OM), Norfolk Island (NF),
Tuvalu (TV), French Polynesia (PF), Syria (SY), Aruba (AW), Cambodia (KH), French Guiana (GF), Eritrea (ER),
Cape Verde (CV), Burundi (BI), Benin (BJ) Bosnia-Herzegovina (BA), Andorra (AD), Guadeloupe (GP),
Guernsey (GG), Isle of Man (IM), Jersey (JE), Lao (LA), Maldives (MV), Marshall Islands (MH),
Mauritania (MR), Northern Mariana Islands (MP), Rwanda (RW), Togo (TG), Yemen (YE), Zaire (ZR)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, uk, de, jp, us, mil, ca, au
Hacks of the Year: US Dept of Justice (17 Aug), CIA (19 Sep), Air Force (29 Dec), UK Labour Party
(6 Dec), NASA DDCSOL - USAFE - US Air Force (30 Dec)
Technologies of the Year: Search engines, JAVA, Internet Phone
Emerging Technologies: Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools, Internet appliance
(Network Computer)
1997
2000th RFC: "Internet Official Protocol Standards"
71,618 mailing lists registered at Liszt, a mailing list directory
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is established to handle administration and registration
of IP numbers to the geographical areas currently handled by Network Solutions (InterNIC), starting
March 1998.
CA*net II launched in June to provide Canada's next generation Internet using ATM/SONET
In protest of the DNS monopoly, AlterNIC's owner, Eugene Kashpureff, hacks DNS so users going
to www.internic.net end up at www.alternic.net
Domain name business.com sold for US$150,000
Early in the morning of 17 July, human error at Network Solutions causes the DNS table for .com and .net
domains to become corrupted, making millions of systems unreachable.
Longest hostname registered with InterNIC: CHALLENGER.MED.SYNAPSE.UAH.UALBERTA.CA
101,803 Name Servers in whois database
RFC 2100: The Naming of Hosts
Country domains registered: Falkland Islands (FK), East Timor (TP), R of Congo (CG), Christmas Island (CX),
Gambia (GM), Guinea-Bissau (GW), Haiti (HT), Iraq (IQ), Libya (LY), Malawi (MW), Martinique (MQ),
Montserrat (MS), Myanmar (MM), French Reunion Island (RE), Seychelles (SC), Sierra Leone (SL), Somalia (SO),
Sudan (SD), Tajikistan (TJ), Turkmenistan (TM), Turks and Caicos Islands (TC), British Virgin Islands (VG),
Heard and McDonald Islands (HM), French Southern Territories (TF), British Indian Ocean Territory (IO),
Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (SJ), St Pierre and Miquelon (PM), St Helena (SH),
South Georgia/Sandwich Islands (GS), Sao Tome and Principe (ST), Ascension Island (AC), US Minor Outlying Islands
(UM), Mayotte (YT), Wallis and Futuna Islands (WF), Tokelau Islands (TK), Chad Republic (TD), Afghanistan (AF),
Cocos Island (CC), Bouvet Island (BV), Liberia (LR), American Samoa (AS), Niue (NU), Equatorial New Guinea (GQ),
Bhutan (BT), Pitcairn Island (PN), Palau (PW), DR of Congo (CD)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, jp, uk, de, us, au, ca, mil
Hacks of the Year: Indonesian Govt (19 Jan, 10 Feb, 24 Apr, 30 Jun, 22 Nov), NASA (5 Mar),
UK Conservative Party (27 Apr), Spice Girls (14 Nov)
Technologies of the Year: Push, Multicasting
Emerging Technologies: Push
1998
Hobbes' Internet Timeline is released as RFC 2235 & FYI 32
US Depart of Commerce (DoC) releases the Green Paper outlining its plan to privatize DNS on 30 January.
This is followed up by a White Paper on June 5
La F�te de l'Internet, a country-wide Internet fest, is held in France 20-21 March
Web size estimates range between 275 (Digital) and 320 (NEC) million pages for 1Q
Companies flock to the Turkmenistan NIC in order to register their name under the .tm domain, the
English abbreviation for trademark
Internet users get to be judges in a performance by 12 world champion ice skaters on 27 March, marking
the first time a television sport show's outcome is determined by its viewers.
Network Solutions registers its 2 millionth domain on 4 May
Electronic postal stamps become a reality, with the US Postal Service allowing stamps to be purchased
and downloaded for printing from the Web.
Canada kicks off CA*net 3, the first national optical internet
Compaq pays US$3.3million for altavista.com
CDA II and a ban on Net taxes are signed into US law (21 October)
ABCNews.com accidentally posts test US election returns one day early (2 November)
Indian ISP market is deregulated in November causing a rush for ISP operation licenses
US DoC enters into an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers (ICANN) to establish
a process for transitioning DNS from US Government management to industry (25 November)
San Francisco sites without off-city mirrors go offline as the city blacks out on 8 December
Chinese government puts Lin Hai on trial for "inciting the overthrow of state power" for providing
30,000 email addresses to a US Internet magazine (December) [ He is later sentenced to two years in jail ]
French Internet users give up their access on 13 December to boycott France Telecom's local phone charges
(which are in addition to the ISP charge)
Open source software comes of age
RFC 2321: RITA -- The Reliable Internetwork Troubleshooting Agent
RFC 2322: Management of IP numbers by peg-dhcp
RFC 2323: IETF Identification and Security Guidelines
RFC 2324: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)
Country domains registered: Nauru (NR), Comoros (KM)
Bandwidth Generators: Winter Olympics (Feb), World Cup (Jun-Jul), Starr Report (11 Sep), Glenn space launch
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, net, edu, mil, jp, us, uk ,de, ca, au
Hacks of the Year: US Dept of Commerce (20 Feb), New York Times (13 Sep), China Society for Human Rights
Studies (26 Oct), UNICEF (7 Jan)
Technologies of the Year: E-Commerce, E-Auctions, Portals
Emerging Technologies: E-Trade, XML, Intrusion Detection
1999
Internet access becomes available to the Saudi Arabian (.sa) public in January
vBNS sets up an OC48 link between CalREN South and North using Juniper M40 routers
First Internet Bank of Indiana, the first full-service bank available only on the Net, opens for
business on 22 February
IBM becomes the first Corporate partner to be approved for Internet2 access
European Parliament proposes banning the caching of Web pages by ISPs
The Internet Fiesta kicks off in March across Europe, building on the success of La F�te de l'Internet
held in 1998
US State Court rules that domain names are property that may be garnished
MCI/Worldcom, the vBNS provider for NSF, begins upgrading the US backbone to 2.5GBps
A forged Web page made to look like a Bloomberg financial news story raised shares of a small
technology company by 31% on 7 April.
ICANN announces the five testbed registrars for the competitive Shared Registry System on 21 April:
AOL, CORE, France Telecom/Ol�ane, Melbourne IT, Register.com. 29 additional post-testbed registrars
are also selected on 21 April, followed by 8 on 25 May, 15 on 6 July, and so on for a total of 98 by
year's end. The testbed, originally scheduled to last until 24 June, is extended until 10 September,
and then 30 November. The first registrar to come online is Register.com on 7 June
First large-scale Cyberwar takes place simultaneously with the war in Serbia/Kosovo
Abilene, the Internet2 network, reaches across the Atlantic and connects to NORDUnet and SURFnet
The Web becomes the focal point of British politics as a list of MI6 agents is released on a
UK Web site. Though forced to remove the list from the site, it was too late as the list had
already been replicated across the Net. (15 May)
Activists Net-wide target the world's financial centers on 18 June, timed to coincide with the
G8 Summit. Little actual impact is reported.
MCI/Worldcom launches vBNS+, a commercialized version of vBNS targeted at smaller educational
and research institutions
Somalia gets its first ISP - Olympic Computer (Sep)
ISOC approves the formation of the Internet Societal Task Force (ISTF). Vint Cerf serves as first chair
Free computers are all the rage (as long as you sign a long term contract for Net service)
.ps is registered to Palestine (11 Oct)
vBNS reaches 101 connections
business.com is sold for US$7.5million (it was purchased in 1997 for US$150,000 (30 Nov)
RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service
RFC 2550: Y10K and Beyond
RFC 2551: The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III
RFC 2555: 30 Years of RFCs
RFC 2626: The Internet and the Millennium Problem (Year 2000)
Top 10 TLDs by Host #: com, net, edu, jp, uk, mil, us, de, ca, au
Hacks of the Year: Star Wars (8 Jan), .tp (Jan), USIA (23 Jan), E-Bay (13 Mar), US Senate (27 May),
NSI (2 Jul), Paraguay Gov't (20 Jul), AntiOnline (5 Aug), Microsoft (26 Oct), UK Railtrack (31 Dec)
Technologies of the Year: E-Trade, Online Banking, MP3
Emerging Technologies: Net-Cell Phones, Thin Computing, Embedded Computing
Viruses of the Year: Melissa (March), ExploreZip (June)
2000s TOP
2000
The US timekeeper (USNO) and a few other time services around the world report the new
year as 19100 on 1 Jan
A massive denial of service attack is launched against major web sites, including Yahoo, Amazon,
and eBay in early February
Web size estimates by NEC-RI and Inktomi surpass 1 billion indexable pages
ICANN redelegates the .pn domain, returning it to the Pitcairn Island community (February)
Internet2 backbone network deploys IPv6 (16 May)
Various domain name hijackings took place in late May and early June, including internet.com,
bali.com, and web.net
A testbed allowing the registration of domain names in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean begins
operation on 9 November. This testbed, created by VeriSign without IETF authorization, only allows
the second-level domain to be non-English, still forcing use of .com, .net, .org. The Chinese government
blocks internal registrations, stating that registrations in Chinese are its sovereignty right
ICANN selects new TLDs: .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, .pro (16 Nov)
Mexico's connection to Internet2 becomes fully operational as the California research network
(CalREN-2) is connected with Mexico's Corporaci�n Universitaria para el Desarrollo de Internet
(CUDI) network. Though connected in November, the link's inauguration by California's Governor
and Mexico's President was not until March of 2001.
After months of legal proceedings, the French court rules Yahoo! must block French users from
accessing hate memorabilia in its auction site (Nov). Given its inability to provide such a
block on the Internet, Yahoo! removes those auctions entirely (Jan 2001).
The European Commission contracts with a consortium of 30 national research networks for the
development of G�ant, Europe's new gigabit research network meant to enhance the current capability
provided by TEN-155 (6 Nov)
Australian government endorses the transfer of authority for the .au domain to auDA (18 Dec).
ICANN signs over control to auDA on 26 Oct 2001.
RFC 2795: The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite
Hacks of the Year: RSA Security (Feb), Apache (May), Western Union (Sep), Microsoft (Oct)
Technologies of the Year: ASP, Napster
Emerging Technologies: Wireless devices, IPv6
Viruses of the Year: Love Letter (May)
Lawsuits of the Year: Napster, DeCSS
2001
The first live distributed musical -- The Technophobe & The Madman -- over Internet2 networks
debuts on 20 Feb
VeriSign extends its multilingual domain testbed to encompass various European languages (26 Feb),
and later the full Unicode character set (5 Apr) opening up most of the world's languages
Forwarding email in Australia becomes illegal with the passing of the Digital Agenda Act, as it is
seen as a technical infringement of personal copyright (4 Mar)
Radio stations broadcasting over the Web go silent over royalty disputes (10 Apr)
High schools in five states (Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington) become the first
to gain Internet2 access
US Dept of Commerce issues a notice of intent on 6 April to turn over management for the .edu
domain from VeriSign to Educase. Award agreement is reached on 29 October. Community colleges are
finally be able to register under .edu
Napster keeps finding itself embroiled in litigation and is eventually forced to suspend service; it
comes back later in the year as a subscription service
European Council finalizes an international cybercrime treaty on 22 June and adopts it on 9 November.
This is the first treaty addressing criminal offenses committed over the Internet.
.biz and .info are added to the root server on 27 June with registrations beginning in July. .biz
domain go live on 7 Nov.
Afghanistan's Taliban bans Internet access country-wide, including from Government offices, in
an attempt to control content (13 Jul)
Code Red worm and Sircam virus infiltrate thousands of web servers and email accounts, respectively,
causing a spike in Internet bandwidth usage and security breaches (July)
A fire in a train tunnel running through Baltimore, Maryland seriously damages various fiber-optic
cable bundles used by backbone providers, disrupting Internet traffic in the Mid-Atlantic states and
creating a ripple effect across the US (18 Jul)
Brazil RNP2 is connected to Internet2's Abilene over 45Mbps line (21 Aug)
GEANT, the pan-European Gigabit Research and Education Network, becomes operational (23 Oct),
replacing the TEN-155 network which was closed down (30 Nov)
.museum begins resolving (Nov)
First uncompressed real-time gigabit HDTV transmission across a wide-area IP network takes place on
Internet2 (12 Nov).
Dutch SURFnet and Internet2's Abilene connect via gigabit ethernet (15 Nov)
.us domain operational responsibility assumed by NeuStar (20 Nov)
RFC 3091: Pi Digit Generation Protocol
RFC 3092: Etymology of "Foo"
RFC 3093: Firewall Enhancement Protocol (FEP)
Viruses of the Year: Code Red (Jul), Nimda (Sep), SirCam (Jul), BadTrans (Apr, Nov)
Emerging Technologies: Grid Computing, P2P
2002
US ISP Association (USISPA) is created from the former CIX (11 Jan)
.name begins resolving (15 Jan)
.coop registrations begin (30 Jan)
.aero registrations begin (18 Mar)
RFC 3251: Electricity over IP
RFC 3252: Binary Lexical Octet Ad-hoc Transport
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