[Off-Topic] A View from the Past About the Internet

I’m opening some really old backups — work I’ve kept from 1995 to 2001, half a decade of history. If you check my Facebook page you’ll find some examples I just posted. In particular, when I was in college I started writing a book (which I never finished or published) about computing in general and about the early days of the Internet.

The text below is exactly as I left it in a Word file, on August 3, 1996, 9:52AM, entitled “CAP12.DOC”. See how I saw the Internet 17 years ago.

Sales on the Internet

Forewords

The real Cold War in the 60s wasn’t being fought in the field, with soldiers and planes, but in research laboratories, funded by the government, and universities were already equipped with the best computing resources available. It was thought that the ability to create and maintain technological advantages over the adversary would determine the winner of the conflict.

The idea of connecting these centers, aiming at the exchange of information, began to be developed. However, a determining factor was attributed to the choice of network technology that would enable the connection of the strategic centers: the information should continue to flow even under the worst conditions, such as a nuclear attack.

ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) and DoD (Department of Defense) were delegated the responsibility of developing the best alternative for integrating information centers.

A few years later, ARPA would change its name to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), starting a plan called the Internetting Project to investigate the possible forms of connection between packet-switched networks. As a result of this project and the studies of the INWG (InterNetwork Working Group), the two basic protocols of the Internet were developed and presented. In 1974, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn presented IP (Internet Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). These two protocols specified how messages (files or commands) would be transferred between computers on the Internet.

Numbers

To understand the importance of the Internet in every sense — social, political, and financial — it’s necessary to see who surfs the Internet. We’ll base ourselves on the research of John Quarterman, an access provider, consultant, and publisher from Austin, Texas, who researches the composition of the Internet population in his Internet Demographic Survey.

Quarterman defined several Internets according to the types of applications running on the servers and the activities of the users. The “core of the Internet” is made up of computers that offer interactive services like FTP, Telnet, or WWW applications. The “consumer Internet” includes people who use the interactive services offered by the core. The total cyberspace, labeled as the “matrix,” includes all users who exchange email.

The most recent survey, for 1995, was published in January 1996. Out of the universe of 45,091 domains, 2.9% (1,293) responded. Quarterman estimates that there were 16.9 million users of the core Internet, 26.4 million users of the consumer Internet, and 39 million users already had email.

Speaking of Brazil, the Secretary of Informatics and Automation Policy of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ivan Moura Campos, says Brazil boasts one of the most astonishing growth rates toward cyberspace — 50% per month — reaching 260 thousand cybernauts at the beginning of May. More realistic predictions estimate one million users by year’s end.

Advertising

After the microcomputer revolution in the 80s and the spread of computing with “a micro on every desk and in every home,” we entered the Information Age.

With microcomputers and the Internet, physical borders have been erased. Tools like Netscape’s CoolTalk replace the telephone, and TimedVideo Grabber enables real-time image transmission with a camera.

After 500 years of print media’s absolute reign, it’s being rapidly replaced by digital publications on the World Wide Web, the part of the Internet that most catches attention today.

With pioneering works like Encyclopedia Britannica, and search services like Yahoo! and Lycos, the Internet has become the largest data repository ever built.

World-famous magazines like PC Magazine and Playboy already have their publications displayed on the WWW.

The World Wide Web was conceived to give a “face” to the Internet, enabling graphical sites. A new scripting language was created, HTML, and a specific protocol, HTTP. For navigation, browsers were created. Netscape with its Netscape Navigator and SpyGlass with Mosaic stood out. Netscape became more widespread, and SpyGlass sold the Mosaic rights to Microsoft, which distributes Internet Explorer.

New concepts emerged such as online publishing. A recent example is the Atlanta Olympics, where the computing work was handled by IBM, with data updated as soon as obtained on the Olympics homepage.

Newspapers also put much of their daily publications on the WWW, like The Gate, an Internet-based product of two San Francisco newspapers. Agência Estado also distributes its newspaper via internet.

Another famous concept is online services like the giants CompuServe and America Online. These services include discussion forums, libraries, magazines, virtual stores, and common Internet services like email and WWW.

In Brazil, Folha de São Paulo and Grupo Abril launched Universo Online and Brasil Online. Such Brazilian services are still experimental and free. For illustration, The New York Times charges USD 30 per month, and America Online charges USD 9.95 for 5 hours or USD 19.95 for 20 hours.

Such services have high revenues due to the current world excitement around service virtualization and the rental of digital space for companies interested in placing “virtual billboards.” Companies like Vivid Studio (which has clients like Silicon Graphics and Microsoft) and Razorfish (which designs for Time-Warner and Pepsi) specialize in designing specific and creative pages using Hypertext, Marquees, music via WAVE files or Real Audio, animations via GIFs or Java, or VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language).

Commerce

The main point of friction when talking about digital commerce is security. The TCP/IP protocol doesn’t have encrypted data transmission. Companies are fighting to develop the standard that would enable the initial surge toward the end of printed money and the development of digital credit.

One of the oldest is CyberCash, about a year old. For now the company only works with credit card services. Through the SIPS (Secure Internet Payment Service) protocol, it’s as easy as point and click. The CyberCash standard uses 768-bit RSA and 56-bit DES encryption.

Other companies include DigiCash, with services centered on First Digital Bank, using e-cash. Visa and Microsoft have STT (Secure Transaction Technology). Mastercard is partnered with IBM, Netscape, GTE, and CyberCash, with the SEPP (Secure Electronic Payment Protocol) standard.

Netscape develops the open security protocol SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and contributes to the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), with about 50 companies from around the world.

In Brazil, Mappin was the first large company to enter the computer-sales business. It’s also possible to choose sweets at Confeitaria Brunella in São Paulo or make reservations at Marcellu’s Bar in Rio de Janeiro.

Thinking about travel, Cruisin is the first tourism agency specialized in cruises that serves exclusively via the Internet. There are alternatives for all bank limits: from Ceará cashews for less than R$ 3.00 to a house in Florida for USD 329,000. Today it’s virtually possible to buy anything on the Internet.

Afterwords

Created for military purposes, then expanded to academic circles, and finally reaching the general public, the Internet is walking in accelerated evolution, covering practically all sectors of society.

When the Internet evolves enough, new technologies will build the expected Information Super Highway, a truly worldwide network using not only computers but also any electronic equipment, such as set-top boxes (replacements for VCRs and video-lasers).

In this next generation, “walking” will be wearing a virtual reality suit and visiting virtual locations with friends from other continents in a digital meeting. This isn’t science fiction delusions: we are so close to it that such technologies already exist — all that’s left is time to make them accessible and operational at the level of mass distribution.