A Brief History of the Internet

Then in the 80's, the US National Science Foundation networked their five supercomputer centres, the resulting network was called NSFNET. The 80's saw other publicly and privately funded networks come into being; USENET, BITNET, CSNET, NASA Science Internet, and the UUCP network. Starting in 1990, these networks were internetworked to form the Internet. In 1991, the ban on commercial traffic was lifted, though controversial, the lifting of that ban, has more than any other factor, contributed to the Internet's recent explosive growth.

One of the more unusual aspects of the Internet is, that is the world's largest cooperative. No one organization or person owns the Internet, at the highest level it is run by a group of volunteers who have formed the Internet Society. Through its two committees; the Internet Architecture Board and the Internet Engineering Task Force, the society develops the standards and resolves the various operational issues.

At the next level, the system administrators of the various host computers cooperate with each other in making their resources available to the net, their actions are guided by a body of written and unwritten rules and customs.

Finally we come to the Internet's greatest power, the millions of users. In the finest tradition of the Hacker's Ethic, it is the users who truly run the net, even to 'forcing' the acceptance of technical standards by the Internet Society. It is the users who maintain and enforce the Internet's distinct online culture. It is the users who own the Internet.