Forty Years Ago...

F orty years ago, in May 1974, IEEE Transactions on Communications published a paper Robert Kahn and I wrote titled “A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication” (doi: 10.1109/TCOM.1974.1092259). This paper was the result of almost six months of work that began in the spring of 1973, when Bob and I began to explore the possibilities for interconnecting different networks and the computers linked to them. Kahn came equipped with powerful ideas for open network interconnection. In September 1973, the essence of the Internet design was presented at the NATO Advanced Studies Institute on Computer Communications, hosted by Richard Grimsdale at the University of Sussex. Many network pioneers around the world subsequently worked to develop and demonstrate implementations and applications of packetswitching technologies and their interconnection. A key element of the Internet design was to permit an arbitrary number of packet networks to be interconnected using a global addressing scheme now known as the Internet Protocol (IP). The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) provided end-to-end reliability, sequencing, flow control, and duplicate detection above the IP layer. The ensemble of protocols developed for the Internet came to be called the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. From such distant origins, the global Internet has emerged, fed by the ideas and efforts of countless contributors around the globe. Among the key US government agencies most closely associated with the Internet are the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where the internetting work began, the National Science Foundation, which broadened its application to the larger research and education community in the US and eventually globally; NASA and the Department of Energy, which expanded its use in their application domains; and the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA), which helped oversee the transition of responsibility for key aspects of the Internet from the US government to the private sector. These are joined by many other government and private-sector organizations worldwide. The advent of the World Wide Web in 1991 — developed by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) — propelled the Internet to new heights of demand and utility until, today, some 3 billion people use the Internet, via both wired and wireless devices. New services are constantly arising. The smartphone has added impetus to the Internet’s creative application with no end in sight. We celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first publication of the Internet design and look with great curiosity toward the ever more connected Internet environment of the future. The year 2014 is proving to be one filled with Internet-related events. In March, the NTIA announced its intention to transfer its oversight responsibilities and authority over the DNS, IP numbers administration, and IP parameter registration to an as-yet-to-be-determined multistakeholder process, with ICANN continuing to carry out implementation in concert with Verisign (for the Domain Name Root Zone maintenance function). In April, the Brazilian government hosted NETmundial (http://netmundial.br/about/), a very large conference with attendance from many countries and high-level participation, including the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff. The conference produced a strikingly comprehensive statement of principles and a forward-looking roadmap toward maintaining an open Internet. In May, a High Level Panel — organized by ICANN and chaired by Estonian president, Toomas Ilves — adopted the NETmundial principles and put forward proposals for policy making in the global Internet environment. In September, the Internet Governance Forum will cont. on p. 87