Oh, And By The Way…The Government DID NOT Create The Internet

by Steve MacDonald 

Mr. ‘Spread-the-Wealth’ “You-didn’t-build-that” Obama is having another bad week after reading a bit too much off the left side of the TelePrompTer.  His Divine Luminance seem to have forgotten what country he is trying to lord over.   When he tried to tell actual business owners that their success can only be the result of the work of many (with the sanction of the state and it’s many gifts to all mankind) he reminded everyone who has ever worked to make something out of nothing that Mr. Obama has no frame of reference; he has never made anything…but a speech. (And he doesn’t even make those he just delivers them.)

Oh, And by the way…someone tell the socialists who write his speeches and load up his prompter that the government did not create the internet.

It’s an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.

If the government didn’t invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet’s backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks.

But full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox. It was at the Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley in the 1970s that the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks. Researchers there also developed the first personal computer (the Xerox Alto) and the graphical user interface that still drives computer usage today.

According to a book about Xerox PARC, “Dealers of Lightning” (by Michael Hiltzik), its top researchers realized they couldn’t wait for the government to connect different networks, so would have to do it themselves.

The inconvenient truth is that what government involvement there was had a negative effect on the development and expansion of Internet technology.

“The Internet, in fact, reaffirms the basic free market critique of large government. Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it languished. . . . In less than a decade, private concerns have taken that protocol and created one of the most important technological revolutions of the millennia.”

So, Mr. Obama.  Your precious government?  It didn’t build that either.

H/T

Daniel J. Mitchell/ TownHall.com

Crovitz: Wall Street Journal

You are reading "Government did not Create The Internet"  by Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com Home

Comments

[Mayme]

Steve you sound like a little petulant child! Nana, nana, my dick is bigger than your dick, nana, nana.

You just proved the point that the internet was a joint venture. The pentagon may have started it with tax money, but it took private interests to streamline it, make it efficient and grow it's profitability. THIS is what makes this country GREAT! We work together for the betterment of society. Some projects that government takes on are inefficient or failures. This is true of private companies. When we come together to solve problems as we do in this country every day, business and government, we get good things happening. I agree with Obama, that no one does anything truly by themselves. Possibly the woman that invented the wheel did it by herself, but I'm guessing it was the man who told her to put a hole in the middle.

[NH INSIDER]

Yes it was a collaborative effort. The actual project to build the first ethernet compliant with the 802.3 specifications involved 3 companies. Xerox was the lead, Intel developed the chip set to pass packets of data at the physical layer. Digital Equipment developed some of the firmware that was burned onto the Intel chipset as well as created the first ethernet controller board. The project did receive some funding from DARPA, but like most Government funding it came as a commitment to purchase x number of products created.

The major DARPA funding was used to pay for the interconnections between the first ethernet
connected companies. This was managed by BBN on the east coast. These would be the Class 'A' address companies. The US Government, Military and the prime vendors of the Government. It was around 1987 when DARPA withdrew funding for interconnections.

HTML was developed so engineers working on different mainframes and PC's could exchange information seamlessly. I recall this was developed at Cern Labs in Switzerland but I could be wrong. Though I am quite certain it was Europe somewhere.

WWW grew out of the development of HTML and our government had absolutely nothing to do with it!

Work Hard Have Fun!
Bob DeMaura

Fun Trivia - "Why are the internet protocols all preceded by 802? ie: 802.3 = ethernet, 802.5 = Token Ring, 802.11 = Wireless (cute with the 11 antennae)

Answer - The final acceptance of the specifications occurred at a meeting of the industry leaders in February 1980 thus 802