This decentralized network could only function through common communication protocols. Only through the destruction of all the nodes in the web could the data traveling along it be completely wiped out-an unlikely event in the case of a highly decentralized network. A web of data pathways would still be able to transmit secure voice “packets,” even if a few of the nodes-places where the web of connections intersected-were destroyed. military was concerned about a nuclear attack destroying the hub in its hub-and-spoke model with this new web-like model, a secure voice transmission would be more likely to endure a large-scale attack. In contrast to a system known as the hub-and-spoke model, where the telephone operator (the “hub”) would patch two people (the “spokes”) through directly, this new system allowed for a voice message to be sent through an entire network, or web, of carrier lines, without the need to travel through a central hub, allowing for many different possible paths to the destination.ĭuring the Cold War, the U.S. In the early 1970s, the RAND Corporation developed a technology (later called “packet switching”) that allowed users to send secure voice messages. The near indestructibility of information on the Internet derives from a military principle used in secure voice transmission: decentralization. Keeping them in mind as you read will help you comprehend the history of the Internet, from the Cold War to the Facebook era. These two elements connect the Internet’s origins to its present-day incarnation. Facebook’s protocols make communication possible and control that communication. Facebook is a simple example of a protocol: Users can easily communicate with one another, but only through acceptance of protocols that include wall posts, comments, and messages. These rules, or protocols, have been developed through consensus by computer scientists to facilitate and control online communication and have shaped the way the Internet works. The second element is the development of rules of communication for computers that enable the machines to turn raw data into useful information.
The first is the persistence of the Internet-its Cold War beginnings necessarily influencing its design as a decentralized, indestructible communication network. Yet there are a few elements that have stayed constant and that provide a coherent thread for examining the origins of the now-pervasive medium.
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