This evening, as an update on my laptop popped up asking me if I wished to update my software to the security upgrade 10.11.6 version, I thought back to the discussion we had today in my freshman seminar. From last week’s reading to this week’s reading of Hafner and Lyon’s book, we shifted our focus from how the ARPA network pioneers transformed hardware, to how they developed the software for their project to work. How would they program the software to make the host computers, IMPs and connections work? Nowadays, we update our computers once a week and it is amazing to think that, at the time the ARPA net was being developed, software updates in the system would happen several times a day as people were still trying to improve and fix the system – (imagine having to update your computer every day!!). Due to this, many of the host computers stopped working due to the updated in another given host computer.

Another topic discussed that sparked my curiosity was the RFC1 developed by the pioneers. The RFC1 (Request for Comments) was a sort of memorandum that described the methods for communicating between the host computer and the IMPs and it basically set out some rules on how to connect to your IMP. The interesting part for me was the way that the RFC1 was set out. People were “invited” to use the RFC1 to help them, as it would make it easier for them to write on how to communicate with their individual IMPs. They were not, however, obliged to endorse the rules on the RFC1, which had its “tentative agreements”. To interact with the network established, it was vital for a person to follow the rules in order to be able to communicate with this network and participate in this creation.

This brought me to think about the different approaches we can have to situations. Rather than making something an obligation, maybe a better approach would be to “invite” people to endorse your idea, by showing them how much they would benefit from it. This different approach could be used in various situations, from implementing rules to a network, to directing a high school or university.

The Finger command protocol was one that provided the status reports on a particular computer system and allowed one host computer to see who was online in another host computer. Our discussion about this command during the seminar made me really reflect about privacy on the Internet nowadays. To what extent would privacy on the Internet be beneficial? Would it limit how much information and knowledge we get from the Internet, not allowing us access to different opinions, mindsets and perspectives? Or would it be a tool to protect us from any harm that the Internet can bring? I believe this is an extremely debatable topic which many are discussing nowadays with current advances of the Internet.

To finish off today’s reflections, it is astonishing to realize how the Internet grew throughout the years. In November 1969, the first ARPANET link was established between the IMP at UCLA and the IMP at Stanford and the ARPANET pioneers eventually formed their network to sustain 32 computers. 32 computers to us seems an extremely small number, as less than 50 years after this first ARPANET link, we find ourselves in 2016 with millions of computers available, all functioning, interconnected and vital in our day-to-day life. It was startling to hear, during the seminar, the recent example that the Internet in Gabon was shut down as their election protests grew, and the United Nations had to intervene to solve the problem as there were massive consequences due to the lack of Internet.

When looking through the list of Freshman Seminars to apply to some weeks ago, the name “What is the Internet, and what will it become?” immediately struck my attention. As I paused to think after reading the title, I began to wonder: when I was born in 1997, the Internet was already a crucial part of human life, but the question that bothered me was, how was the Internet created and how did it get to this point?

My first reading assignment for the seminar was the first half of the book “Why wizards stay up late” by Hafner and Lyon. This reading really opened my eyes to the complexity behind the Internet and computers. When we open our computer devices nowadays, the interaction between the user and their device is very simple, illustrated and visual. Buttons, icons, keys, amongst many other features, color our screens and make it easy to navigate, communicate and find whatever we need. In the initial stages of constructing the Internet, however, things did not seem as simple as what we see (and use) today.

What intrigued me at first in the reading was the figure of Paul Baran. He was one of the first to have the desire to build a network of connectivity. The funny part for me was reading that his motive for creating this interconnected space was not to connect to one another, but because of fear that the soviets would attack – we would never even think about this nowadays, right?

Also due to defense reasons, came the creation of ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) by the US Department of Defense. This brought a dilemma between the military and the scientists, as the scientists did not want ARPA to be for military services – they ended up moving from the Pentagon to a much freer willing space, a space like today’s start ups are located in.

But the most interesting part for me was reading about the difficulty “Internet pioneers” had to communicate between their different machines. Thinking about our daily lives, once again, all our devices can be interconnected and speak the same language. This allows us to send a message to someone who’s physically at the other side of the world (and even video call them if we want!). The problem of building a network of connectivity was the main obstacle encountered at the time. Bob Taylor was one who looked at this situation and had the thought of connecting these several different machines, who all spoke different languages and had to be used individually. After some time, the solution they came up with was using IMPs – intermediate computers. These IMPs would all be the same and would be added to each station (at each university involved in the process). This meant that each station would just need to know how to communicate to the IMP, and each IMP would understand their station’s language. To me, this seemed like a very smart solution, but I can also imagine the amount work it took them to make it happen!!

Well, these were some of my thoughts and interests from the first seminar reading/discussion, and I’ll be back next week with more insights on what I learn next!