





Network Working Group                                           R. Zakon
Request for Comments: 2235                                         MITRE
FYI: 32                                                    November 1997
Category: Informational


                       Hobbes' Internet Timeline

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) Robert H. Zakon and The Internet Society (1997).
   All Rights Reserved.

1. Introduction

   This document presents a history of the Internet in timeline fashion,
   highlighting some of the key events and technologies which helped
   shape the Internet as we know it today.  A growth summary of the
   Internet and some associated technologies is also included.

2. Hobbes' Internet Timeline

   Excerpted from the author's copyrighted work of the same name.  The
   most current version of Hobbes' Internet Timeline is available at
   http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   1950s

1957
     USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In
     response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
     within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in
     science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   1960s

1962
     Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"
        - Packet-switching (PS) networks; no single outage point



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1965
     ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing
     computers"
        - TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and Q-32 at System Development
          Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without
          packet switches)

1967
     ACM Symposium on Operating Principles
        - Plan presented for a packet-switching network
        - First design paper on ARPANET published by Lawrence G. Roberts

     National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops
     NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies

1968
     PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency
     (ARPA)

1969
     ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
        - First node at UCLA, Network Measurements Center
          [SDS SIGMA 7, SEX] and soon after at:
             - Stanford Research Institute (SRI), NIC [SDS940/Genie]
             - UCSB, Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics
               [IBM 360/75, OS/MVT]
             - Univ of Utah, Graphics [DEC PDP-10, Tenex]
        - use of Information Message Processors (IMP) [Honeywell 516
          mini computer with 12K of memory developed by Bolt Beranek
          and Newman, Inc. (BBN)

     First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker

     Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish
     X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   1970s

     Store-and-forward networks
        - Used electronic mail technology and extended it to
        conferencing








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1970
     ALOHAnet developed by Norman Abrahamson, Univ of Hawaii (:sk2:)
        - connected to the ARPANET in 1972

     ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP).

1971
     15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, Univ of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND,
     SDC, Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames

     Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across
     a distributed network. The original program was derived from two
     others: an intra-machine email program (SNDMSG) and an experimental
     file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)

1972
     International Conference on Computer Communications with
     demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal
     Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn.

     InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need for
     establishing agreed upon protocols. Chairman: Vinton Cerf.

     Telnet specification (RFC 318)

1973
     First international connections to the ARPANET: University College
     of London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (Norway)

     Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet
     (:amk:)

     Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research
     program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March
     on back of envelope in hotel lobby in San Francisco (:vgc:)

     Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at
     Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:)

     File Transfer specification (RFC 454)

1974
     Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network
     Intercommunication" which specified in detail the design of a
     Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:)

     BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a
     commercial version of ARPANET) (:sk2:)



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1975
     Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)

     "Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:)

     Shockwave Rider written by John Brunner (:pds:)

1976
     Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an e-mail
     (various Net folks have e-mailed dates ranging from 1971 to 1978;
     1976 was the most submitted and the only found in print)

     UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and
     distributed with UNIX one year later.

1977
     THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at Univ of Wisconsin providing
     electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science (using
     a locally developed email system and TELENET for access to server).

     Mail specification (RFC 733)

     Tymshare launches Tymnet

     First demonstration of ARPANET/Packet Radio Net/SATNET operation of
     Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:)

1979
     Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, NSF, and computer
     scientists from many universities to establish a Computer Science
     Department research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber)

     USENET established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott,
     Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under net.*
     hierarchy.

     First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex

     ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB)

     Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding.
     Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET
     connection via SRI.

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------






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                                   1980s

1981
     BITNET, the "Because It's Time NETwork"
        - Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New
          York, with the first connection to Yale (:feg:)
        - Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in
          reference to the free NJE protocols provided with the IBM
          systems
        - Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute
          information, as well as file transfers

     CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of
     computer scientists and Univ of Delaware, Purdue Univ, Univ of
     Wisconsin, RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by
     NSF to provide networking services (especially email) to university
     scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known as
     the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:)

     Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by France Telecom.

     True Names written by Vernor Vinge (:pds:)

1982
     DCA and ARPA establish the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and
     Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as
     TCP/IP, for ARPANET. (:vgc:)
        - This leads to one of the first definitions of an "internet" as
          a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP,
          and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.
        - DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD (:vgc:)

     EUnet (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email
     and USENET services. (:glg:)
        - original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden,
          and UK

     External Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is used for
     gateways between networks.

1983
     Name server developed at Univ of Wisconsin, no longer requiring
     users to know the exact path to other systems.

     Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January)

     CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place




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     ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated
     with the Defense Data Network created the previous year.

     Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX which
     includes IP networking software.

     Networking needs switch from having a single, large time sharing
     computer connected to the Internet at each site, to instead
     connecting entire local networks.

     Internet Activities Board (IAB) established, replacing ICCB

     Berkeley releases 4.2BSD incorporating TCP/IP (:mpc:)

     EARN (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very
     similar to the way BITNET works with a gateway funded by IBM.

     FidoNet developed by Tom Jennings.

1984
     Domain Name System (DNS) introduced.

     Number of hosts breaks 1,000

     JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP.

     JANET (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the
     Coloured Book protocols; previously SERCnet.

     Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)

     Neuromancer written by William Gibson

1985
    Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL) started

    Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at USC is given responsibility
    for DNS root management by DCA, and SRI for DNS NIC registrations

    Symbolics.com is assigned on 15 March to become the first registered
    domain. Other firsts: cmu.edu, purdue.edu, rice.edu, ucla.edu
    (April); css.gov (June); mitre.org, .uk (July)

    100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-
    Canada railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to BITNET
    in a one year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:)





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1986
     NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)
        - NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide
          high-computing power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh,
          SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC, Theory Center@Cornell).
        - This allows an explosion of connections, especially from
          universities.

     NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational
     (:sw1:)

     Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Research Task
     Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB. First IETF meeting
     held in January at Linkabit in San Diego

     The first Freenet (Cleveland) comes on-line 16 July under the
     auspices of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later
     Freenet program management assumed by the National Public
     Telecomputing Network (NPTN) in 1989 (:sk2,rab:)

     Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) designed to enhance Usenet
     news performance over TCP/IP.

     Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow
     non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.

     The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987.

     BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high
     speed links. Operational in 1987.

1987
     NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone
     with Merit Network, Inc. (IBM and MCI involvement was through an
     agreement with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.

     UUNET is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and
     Usenet access. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike
     O'Dell

     Email link established between Germany and China using CSNET
     protocols, with the first message from China sent on 20 September.
     (:wz1:)

     1000th RFC: "Request For Comments reference guide"

     Number of hosts breaks 10,000




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     Number of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000

1988
     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 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 e-mail
     and news (:tp1:)

     Countries connecting to NSFNET: Canada (CA), Denmark (DK), Finland
     (FI), France (FR), Iceland (IS), Norway (NO), Sweden (SE)

1989
     Number of hosts breaks 100,000

     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



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     AARNET - Australian Academic Research Network - set up by AVCC and
     CSIRO; introduced into service the following year (:gmc:)

     Cuckoo's Egg written by Clifford Stoll tells the real-life tale of
     a German cracker group who infiltrated numerous US facilities

     CERT advisories: 7

     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)

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------

                                   1990s

1990
     ARPANET ceases to exist

     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, (controlled via SNMP) makes its
     debut at Interop.

     CERT advisories: 12, reports: 130

     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)






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1991
     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 (: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 Minnessota

     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 'tunnelled' within X.25. (:gst:)

     CERT advisories: 23

     Countries connecting to NSFNET: Croatia (HR), Czech Repulic (CZ),
     Hong Kong (HK), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Singapore
     (SG), South Africa (ZA), Taiwan (TW), Tunisia (TN)

1992
     Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered

     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:)



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     IAB reconstituted as the Internet Architecture Board and becomes
     part of the Internet Society

     Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by Univ of Nevada

     World Bank comes on-line

     Japan's first ISP, Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ), is formed by
     Koichi Suzuki

     The term "Surfing the Internet" is coined by Jean Armour Polly
     (:jap:)

     Internet Hunt started by Rick Gates

     CERT advisories: 21, reports: 800

     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)

1993
     InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services:
     (:sc1:)
        - directory and database services (AT&T)
        - registration services (Network Solutions Inc.)
        - information services (General Atomics/CERFnet)

     US White House comes on-line (http://www.whitehouse.gov/):
        - President Bill Clinton: president@whitehouse.gov
        - Vice-President Al Gore: vice-president@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 really take notice of the Internet

     Mosaic takes the Internet by storm; WWW proliferates at a 341,634%
     annual growth rate of service traffic. Gopher's growth is 997%.

     CERT advisories: 18, reports: 1300



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     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)

1994
     ARPANET/Internet celebrates 25th anniversary

     Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet
     (Lexington and Cambridge, MA, 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

     UK's HM Treasury on-line

     New Zealand's Info Tech Prime Minister on-line

     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, WJHK at Univ of KS-Lawrence, KUGS at
     Western WA Univ

     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. TERERNA's aim is to



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     "promote and participate in the development of a high quality
     international information and telecommunications infrastructure for
     the benefit of research and education"

     CERT advisories: 15, reports: 2300

     Countries connecting to NSFNET: Algeria (DZ), Armenia (AM), Bermuda
     (BM), Burkina Faso (BF), China (CN), Colombia (CO), Jamaica (JM),
     Lebanon (LB), Lithuania (LT), Macau (MO), Morocco (MA), New
     Caledonia, Nicaragua (NI), Niger (NE), Panama (PA), Philippines
     (PH), Senegal (SN), Sri Lanka (LK), Swaziland (SZ), Uruguay (UY),
     Uzbekistan (UZ)

1995
     NSFNET reverts back to a research network. Main US backbone traffic
     now routed through interconnected network providers

     The new NSFNET is born as NSF establishes the very high speed
     Backbone Network Service (vBNS) linking super-computing centers:
     NCAR, NCSA, SDSC, CTC, PSC

     Hong Kong police disconnect all but 1 of the colony's Internet
     providers in search of a hacker. 10,000 people are left without Net
     access. (:api:)

     RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near
     real-time

     Radio HK, the first 24 hr., Internet-only radio station starts
     broadcasting

     WWW surpasses ftp-data in March as the service with greatest
     traffic on NSFNet based on packet count, and in April based on byte
     count

     Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, America Online,
     Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access

     A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading
     the pack with the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9
     August)

     Thousands in Minneapolis-St. Paul (USA) lose Net access after
     transients start a bonfire under a bridge at the Univ of MN causing
     fiber-optic cables to melt (30 July)






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     Registration of domain names is no longer free. Beginning 14
     September, a $50 annual fee has been imposed, which up until now
     was subsidized by NSF. NSF continues to pay for .edu registration,
     and on an interim basis for .gov

     The Vatican comes on-line

     The Canadian Government comes on-line

     The first official Internet wiretap was successful in helping the
     Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) aprehend three
     individuals who were illegally manufacturing and selling cell phone
     cloning equipment and electronic devices

     Operation Home Front connects, for the first time, soldiers in the
     field with their families back home via the Internet.

     Richard White becomes the first person to be declared a munition,
     under the USA's arms export control laws, because of an RSA file
     security encryption program emblazoned on his arm (:wired496:)

     CERT advisories: 18, reports: 2412

     Country domains registered: Ethiopia (ET), Cote d'Ivoire (CI), Cook
     Islands (CK) Cayman Islands (KY), Anguilla (AI), Gibraltar (GI),
     Vatican (VA), Kiribati (KI), Kyrgyzstan (KG), Madagascar (MG),
     Mauritius (MU), Micronesia (FM), Monaco (MC), Mongolia (MN), Nepal
     (NP), Nigeria (NG), Western Samoa (WS), San Marino (SM), Tanzania
     (TZ), Tonga (TO), Uganda (UG), Vanuatu (VU)

     Technologies of the Year: WWW, Search engines Emerging
     Technologies: Mobile code (JAVA, JAVAscript), Virtual environments
     (VRML), Collaborative tools

1996
     Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication
     companies who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has
     been around for years)

     The controversial US Communications Decency Act (CDA) becomes law
     in the US in order to prohibit distribution of indecent materials
     over the Net. A few months later a three-judge panel imposes an
     injunction against its enforcement. Supreme Court unanimously rules
     most of it unconstitutional in 1997.

     9,272 organizations find themselves unlisted after the InterNIC
     drops their name service as a result of not having paid their
     domain name fee



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     Various ISPs suffer extended service outages, bringing into
     question whether they will be able to handle the growing number of
     users. AOL (19 hours), Netcom (13 hours), AT&T WorldNet (28 hours -
     email only)

     New Yorks' Public Access Networks Corp (PANIX) is shut down after
     repeated SYN attacks by a cracker using methods outlined in a
     hacker magazine (2600)

     Various US Government sites are hacked into and their content
     changed, including CIA, Department of Justice, Air Force

     MCI upgrades Internet backbone adding ~13,000 ports, bringing the
     effective speed from 155Mbps to 622Mbps.

     The Internet Ad Hoc Committee announces plans to add 7 new generic
     Top Level Domains (gTLD): .firm, .store, .web, .arts, .rec, .info,
     registrars worldwide.

     A malicious cancelbot is released on USENET wiping out more than
     25,000 messages.

     The WWW browser war, fought primarily between Netscape and
     Microsoft, has rushed in a new age in software development, whereby
     new releases are made quarterly with the help of Internet users
     eager to test upcoming (beta) versions.

     Restrictions on Internet use around the world:
        - China: requires users and ISPs to register with the police
        - Germany: cuts off access to some newsgroups carried on
          Compuserve
        - Saudi Arabia: confines Internet access to universities and
          hospitals
        - Singapore: requires political and religious content providers
          to register with the state
        - New Zealand: classifies computer disks as "publications" that
          can be censored and seized
        - source: Human Rights Watch

     vBNS additions: Baylor College of Medicine, Georgia Tech, Iowa
     State Univ, Ohio State Univ, Old Dominion Univ, Univ of CA, Univ of
     CO, Univ of Chicago, Univ of IL, Univ of MN, Univ of PA, Univ of
     TX, Rice Univ

     CERT advisories: 27, reports: 2573






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     Country domains registered: Qatar (QA), Vientiane (LA), Djibouti
     (DJ), Niger (NE), Central African Republic (CF), Mauretania (MF),
     Oman (OM), Norfolk Island (NF), Tuvalu (TV), French Polynesia (PF),
     Syria (SY), Aruba (AW), Cambodia (KH), French Guiana (GF), Eritrea
     (ER), Cape Verde (CV), Burundi (BI), Benin (BJ) Bosnia-Hercegovina
     (BA), Andorra (AD), Guadeloupe (GP), Guernsey (GG), Isle of Man
     (IM), Jersey (JE), Lao (LA), Maldives (MV), Marshall Islands (MH),
     Mauritania (MR), Northern Mariana Islands (MP), Rwanda (RW), Togo
     (TG), Yemen (YE), Zaire (ZR)

     Technologies of the Year: Search engines, JAVA, Internet Phone
     Emerging Technologies: Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative
     tools, Internet appliance (Network Computer)

1997
     2000th RFC: "Internet Official Protocol Standards"

     71,618 mailing lists registered at Liszt, a mailing list directory

     The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) is established to
     handle administration and registration of IP numbers to the
     geographical areas currently handled by Network Solutions
     (InterNIC), starting March 1998.

     Early in the morning of 17 July, human error at Network Solutions
     causes the DNS table for .com and .net domains to become corrupted,
     making millions of systems unreachable.

     Longest hostname registered with InterNIC:
     CHALLENGER.MED.SYNAPSE.UAH.UALBERTA.CA

     101,803 Name Servers in whois database

     CERT advisories thus far: 23

     Country domains registered: Falkland Islands (FK), East Timor (TP),
     Congo (CG), Christmas Island (CX), Gambia (GM), Guinea-Bissau (GW),
     Haiti (HT), Iraq (IQ), Lybia (LY), Malawi (MW), Martinique (MQ),
     Montserrat (MS), Myanmar (MM), French Reunion Island (RE),
     Seychelles (SC), Sierra Leone (SL), Sudan (SD), Turkmenistan (TM),
     Turks and Caicos Islands (TC), British Virgin Islands (VG)

     Technologies of the Year: Push, Multicasting Emerging Technologies:
     Push, Streaming Media [:twc:]

   ---------------------------------------------------------------------





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                                  Growth

Internet growth:

   Date       Hosts       |     Date       Hosts     Networks   Domains
   -----    ---------     +     -----    ---------   --------  ---------
    1969            4     |     07/89      130,000        650      3,900
   04/71           23     |     10/89      159,000        837
   06/74           62     |     10/90      313,000      2,063      9,300
   03/77          111     |     01/91      376,000      2,338
   08/81          213     |     07/91      535,000      3,086     16,000
   05/82          235     |     10/91      617,000      3,556     18,000
   08/83          562     |     01/92      727,000      4,526
   10/84        1,024     |     04/92      890,000      5,291     20,000
   10/85        1,961     |     07/92      992,000      6,569     16,300
   02/86        2,308     |     10/92    1,136,000      7,505     18,100
   11/86        5,089     |     01/93    1,313,000      8,258     21,000
   12/87       28,174     |     04/93    1,486,000      9,722     22,000
   07/88       33,000     |     07/93    1,776,000     13,767     26,000
   10/88       56,000     |     10/93    2,056,000     16,533     28,000
   01/89       80,000     |     01/94    2,217,000     20,539     30,000
                          |     07/94    3,212,000     25,210     46,000
                          |     10/94    3,864,000     37,022     56,000
                          |     01/95    4,852,000     39,410     71,000
                          |     07/95    6,642,000     61,538    120,000
                          |     01/96    9,472,000     93,671    240,000
                          |     07/96   12,881,000    134,365    488,000
                          |     01/97   16,146,000               828,000
                          |     07/97   19,540,000             1,301,000


Worldwide Networks Growth: (I)nternet (B)ITNET (U)UCP (F)IDONET (O)SI

           ____# Countries____                       ____# Countries____
   Date     I   B   U   F   O                Date     I   B   U   F   O
   -----   --- --- --- --- ---               -----   --- --- --- --- ---
   09/91    31  47  79  49                   02/94    62  51 125  88  31
   12/91    33  46  78  53                   07/94    75  52 129  89  31
   02/92    38  46  92  63                   11/94    81  51 133  95  --
   04/92    40  47  90  66  25               02/95    86  48 141  98  --
   08/92    49  46  89  67  26               06/95    96  47 144  99  --
   01/93    50  50 101  72  31               06/96   134  -- 146 108  --
   04/93    56  51 107  79  31               07/97   171  -- 147 108  --
   08/93    59  51 117  84  31







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WWW Growth:

   Date     Sites     |   Date     Sites     |   Date     Sites
   -----  ----------  +   -----  ----------  +   -----  ----------
   06/93         130  |   08/96     342,081  |   04/97   1,002,612
   12/93         623  |   09/96     397,281  |   05/97   1,044,163
   06/94       2,738  |   10/96     462,047  |   06/97   1,117,255
   12/94      10,022  |   11/96     525,906  |   07/97   1,203,096
   06/95      23,500  |   12/96     603,367  |   08/97   1,269,800
   01/96     100,000  |   01/97     646,162  |   09/97   1,364,714
   06/96     252,000  |   02/97     739,688  |
   07/96     299,403  |   03/97     883,149  |


USENET Growth:

Date  Sites  ~MB  ~Posts  Groups  |  Date   Sites   ~MB   ~Posts  Groups
----  -----  ---  ------  ------  +  ----  -------  ---   ------  ------
1979      3            2       3  |  1987    5,200    2      957     259
1980     15           10          |  1988    7,800    4     1933     381
1981    150  0.05     20          |  1990   33,000   10    4,500   1,300
1982    400           35          |  1991   40,000   25   10,000   1,851
1983    600          120          |  1992   63,000   42   17,556   4,302
1984    900          225          |  1993  110,000   70   32,325   8,279
1985  1,300  1.0     375          |  1994  180,000  157   72,755  10,696
1986  2,200  2.0     946     241  |  1995  330,000  586  131,614

      ~ approximate: MB - megabytes per day, Posts - articles per day

---------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Sources

     Hobbes' Internet Timeline was compiled from a number of sources,
     with some of the stand-outs being:

     Cerf, Vinton (as told to Bernard Aboba). "How the Internet Came to
     Be." This article appears in "The Online User's Encyclopedia," by
     Bernard Aboba.  Addison-Wesley, 1993.

     Hardy, Henry. "The History of the Net."  Master's Thesis, School of
     Communications, Grand Valley State University.
     http://www.ocean.ic.net/ftp/doc/nethist.html

     Hardy, Ian.  "The Evolution of ARPANET email." History Thesis, UC
     Berkeley.
     http://server.berkeley.edu/virtual-berkeley/email_history




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     Hauben, Ronda and Michael. "The Netizens and the Wonderful World of
     the Net."
     http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

     Kulikowski, Stan II. "A Timeline of Network History." (author's
     email below)

     Quarterman, John. "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing
     Systems Worldwide."  Bedford, MA: Digital Press. 1990

     "ARPANET, the Defense Data Network, and Internet".  Encyclopedia of
     Communications, Volume 1.  Editors: Fritz Froehlich, Allen Kent.
     New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc. 1991

     Internet growth summary compiled from:
       - zone program reports maintained by Mark Lottor at:
             ftp://ftp.nw.com/pub/zone/
       - connectivity table maintained by Larry Landweber at:
             ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/connectivity_table/

     WWW growth summary compiled from:
       - Web growth summary page by Matthew Gray of MIT:
            http://www.mit.edu/people/mkgray/net/web-growth-summary.html
       - Netcraft at http://www.netcraft.com/survey/

     USENET growth summary compiled from Quarterman and Hauben sources
     above, and news.lists postings.  Lots of historical USENET postings
     also provided by Tom Fitzgerald (fitz@wang.com).

     Related Timelines:
       - DNS: http://www.wia.org/dns-law/pub/timeline.html"
       - JAVA: http://java.sun.com/events/jibe/timeline.html
       - BBN: http://www.bbn.com/timeline/

     Additional books of interest:
       - "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet"
            Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon
       - "Architects of the Web: 1,000 Days That Built the Future of
            Business", Robert H. Reid
       - "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
            Internet", Michael Hauben et al










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4. Acknowledgements

     Contributors to Hobbes' Internet Timeline have their initials next
     to the contributed items in the form (:zzz:) and are:

     ad1 - Arnaud Dufour (arnaud.dufour@hec.unil.ch)
     amk - Alex McKenzie (mckenzie@bbn.com)
     dk1 - Daniel Karrenberg (Daniel.Karrenberg@ripe.net)
     ec1 - Eric Carroll (eric@enfm.utcc.utoronto.ca)
     esr - Eric S. Raymond (esr@locke.ccil.org)
     feg - Farrell E. Gerbode (farrell@is.rice.edu)
     gck - Gary C. Kessler (kumquat@hill.com)
     glg - Gail L. Grant (grant@glgc.com)
     gmc - Grant McCall (g.mccall@unsw.edu.au)
     gst - Graham Thomas (G.S.Thomas@uel.ac.uk)
     irh - Ian R Hardy (hardy@uclink2.berkeley.edu)
     jap - Jean Armour Polly (mom@netmom.com)
     jg1 - Jim Gaynor (gaynor@agvax.ag.ohio.state.edu)
     kf1 - Ken Fockler (fockler@hq.canet.ca)
     lhl - Larry H. Landweber (lhl@cs.wisc.edu)
     mpc - Mellisa P. Chase (pc@mitre.org)
     pb1 - Paul Burchard (burchard@cs.princeton.edu)
     pds - Peter da Silva (peter@baileynm.com)
     ph1 - Peter Hoffman (hoffman@ece.nps.navy.mil)
     rab - Roger A. Bielefeld (rab@hal.cwru.edu)
     sc1 - Susan Calcari (susanc@is.internic.net)
     sk2 - Stan Kulikowski (stankuli@uwf.bitnet) - see sources section
     sw1 - Stephen Wolff (swolff@cisco.com)
     tp1 - Tim Pozar (pozar@kumr.lns.com)
     twc - Thomas W. Creedon - K'o Wei Li (tcreedon@mitre.org)
     vgc - Vinton Cerf (vcerf@isoc.org) - see sources section
     wz1 - W. Zorn (zorn@ira.uka.de)
     zby - Zenel Batagelj (zenel.batagelj@uni-lj.si)

5. Security Considerations

     Security issues are not discussed in this document, though
     references are made to security events which have taken place.













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6. Author's Address

     Robert H. Zakon
     Internet Evangelist
     The MITRE Corporation
     1820 Dolley Madison Blvd
     McLean, Virginia, USA 22102

     Phone: (703) 883-7790
     EMail: zakon@info.isoc.org

7. Disclaimer

     The views expressed in this document are the author's and are not
     intended to represent in any way The MITRE Corporation or its
     opinions on this subject matter.



































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8.  Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) Robert H. Zakon and The Internet Society (1997).
   All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
   or assist in its implmentation may be prepared, copied, published and
   distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
   provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
   included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
   document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
   the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
   Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
   developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
   copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
   followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
   English.

   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
   revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
   TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
   BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
   HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.























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