Electronic Mail and Internet Security - Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times - page 326

these were not host-to-host connections. Instead, they were virtual circuits over
packet networks. In the 1970s and 1980s, the host-to-host networks remained
in government control.
ARPA was replaced by DARPA, the Defence Advanced Research Project
Agency, which may be seen as having played a seminal role in the establishing
of a mini-version of the Internet via its researchers employinga network for
their communications. Essentially, DARPA employed a combination of ground
and satellite-based packet networks. This allowed a combination of ground-
based radio system transportable access to computingfacilities, coupled with
a satellite-based connection between the United States and Europe. However,
there was no interconnection amongthe round-based net, the satellite-based
net, and other networks; i.e., the modern-day Internet was not yet born.
By the mid-1970s, the notion of data packets evolved into a scheme called
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), allowinginterconnected networks all over
the globe to transmit and receive data. This new protocol contained a world-
wide addressingscheme permittingrouters to deliver data packets to their target
sites. This new addressingmethod was called the Internet Protocol (IP). By the
mid-1980s, the TCP/IP scheme was effectively adopted worldwide.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) in the U.S. played a significant
role in establishingTCP/IP as a universal standard. In the mid-1980s, they
funded the first five supercomputingcenters, and the development of NSFNET,
a network to connect these centers. By the late 1980s, a commercial distribution
of networks was developed in the private sector called the Commercial Internet
Exchange (CIX), since private enterprise was not allowed to use NSFNET for
their transactions. However, by 1993, federal legislation allowed NSF to open
NSFNET to commerce. As a consequence, in 1995, NSF dropped its support
of NSFNET, since they saw the willingness of the private sector to support a
communications network on their own. This, as with cryptography discussed
earlier, marked the end of government control of the Internet, and permitted the
proliferation of private sources to carry the torch. For instance, at the grassroots
level, the IETF has developed and maintained standards (see page 219). By the
late 1990s, the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) had mushroomed,
and we now have tens of millions of ISP subscribers, with no end in sight.
In 1988, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives provided the first
commercial Internet connection linkinge-mail, called MCI mail. Followingthis
inception, other e-mail providers entered the fray and Internet traJc has never
been the same. In September of 1993, the National Center for Supercomput-
ingApplications at the University of Illinois introduced Mosaic , which was the
first of a new breed of computer programs called a browser , which made it eas-
ier to access, obtain, and display Internet files. Embedded in Mosaic was a
collection of protocols, developed at Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire
(CERN), for an Internet application called the World-Wide Web . From Mosaic
Communications Corporation evolved Netscape Communications Corporation,
established in April 1994, to develop Mosaic for commercial use. Mosaic was
released oJcially in December of 1994, after which it swiftly became the pre-
dominant browser. Later, Microsoft Corporation developed Internet Explorer ,