1988 - 1994
This
chapter start with the release of the first internet worm, and ends
with connecting many countries to the internet.
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Soon after the
completion of the T1 NSFNET backbone, traffic increased so quickly that plans
immediately began on upgrading the network again.
Merit and its
partners formed a not for profit corporation called ANS, Advanced Network Systems,
which was to conduct research into high speed networking. It soon came up with
the concept of the T3, a 45 Mbps line. NSF quickly adopted the new network and
by the end of 1991 all of its sites were connected by this new backbone.
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)
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 decomissioning
(August)
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)
Number of hosts breaks 100,000
While the T3 lines
were being constructed, the Department of Defense disbanded the ARPANET and
it was replaced by the NSFNET backbone. The original 50Kbs lines of ARPANET
were taken out of service.
Tim Berners-Lee
and CERN in Geneva implements a hypertext system to provide efficient information
access to the members of the international high-energy physics community.
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. Pictures: Internode,
Invisible
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)
Backbones: 56Kbps CSNET, 1.544Mbps (T1) NSFNET, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 313,000
CSNET (which consisted
of 56Kbps lines) was discontinued having fulfilled its important early role
in the provision of academic networking service. A key feature of CREN is that
its operational costs are fully met through dues paid by its member organizations.
The NSF established
a new network, named NREN, the National Research and Education Network. The
purpose of this network is to conduct high speed networking research. It was
not to be used as a commercial network, nor was it to be used to send a lot
of the data that the Internet now transfers.
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 signalled the changeover from Coloured Book software
to TCP/IP within the UK academic network. IP was initially 'tunneled' within
X.25. (:gst:)
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)
Backbones: Partial 45Mbps (T3) NSFNET, a few private backbones, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 617,000
Internet Society
is chartered in January.
World-Wide Web
released by CERN.
NSFNET backbone
upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps
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
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)
Backbones: 45Mbps (T3) NSFNET, private interconnected backbones consisting mainly of 56Kbps, 1.544Mbps, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 1,136,000
InterNIC created
by NSF to provide specific Internet services: directory and database services
(by AT&T), registration services (by Network Solutions Inc.), and information
services (by General Atomics/CERFnet).
Marc Andreessen
and NCSA and the University of Illinois develops a graphical user interface
to the WWW, called "Mosaic for X".
US White House
comes on-line (http://www.whitehouse.gov/):
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%.
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)
Backbones: 45Mbps (T3) NSFNET, private interconnected backbones consisting mainly of 56Kbps, 1.544Mbps, and 45Mpbs lines, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 2,056,000
No major changes
were made to the physical network. The most significant thing that happened
was the growth. Many new networks were added to the NSF backbone. Hundreds of
thousands of new hosts were added to the INTERNET during this time period.
Pizza Hut offers
pizza ordering on its Web page.
First Virtual,
the first cyberbank, opens.
ATM (Asynchronous
Transmission Mode, 145Mbps) backbone is installed on NSFNET.
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.
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
Backbones: 145Mbps (ATM) NSFNET, private interconnected backbones consisting mainly of 56Kbps, 1.544Mbps, and 45Mpbs lines, plus satellite and radio connections - Hosts: 3,864,000
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Last Updated on 19 March 2001 | For suggestions please mail the editors |
Footnotes & References