1950s
1957
USSR launches Sputnik, first artificial earth satellite. In response, US forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the following year, within the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military (:amk:)
________________________________________
1960s
1961
Leonard Kleinrock, MIT: "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" (May 31)
•   First paper on packet-switching (PS) theory
1962
J.C.R. Licklider & W. Clark, MIT: "On-Line Man Computer Communication" (August)
•   Galactic Network concept encompassing distributed social interactions
1964
Paul Baran, RAND: "On Distributed Communications Networks"
•   Packet-switching networks; no single outage point
1965
ARPA sponsors study on "cooperative network of time-sharing computers"
•   TX-2 at MIT Lincoln Lab and AN/FSQ-32 at System Development Corporation (Santa Monica, CA) are directly linked (without packet switches) via a dedicated 1200bps phone line; Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer at ARPA later added to form "The Experimental Network"
1966
Lawrence G. Roberts, MIT: "Towards a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers" (October)
•   First ARPANET plan
1967
ARPANET design discussions held by Larry Roberts at ARPA IPTO PI meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (April)
ACM Symposium on Operating Principles in Gatlinburg, Tennessee (October)
•   First design paper on ARPANET published by Larry Roberts: "Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication
•   First meeting of the three independent packet network teams (RAND, NPL, ARPA)
National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops NPL Data Network under Donald Watts Davies who coins the term packet. The NPL network, an experiment in packet-switching, used 768kbps lines
1968
PS-network presented to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
Request for proposals for ARPANET sent out in August; responses received in September
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) awarded Network Measurement Center contract in October
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) awarded Packet Switch contract to build Interface Message Processors (IMPs)
US Senator Edward Kennedy sends a congratulatory telegram to BBN for its million-dollar ARPA contract to build the "Interfaith" Message Processor, and thanking them for their ecumenical efforts
Network Working Group (NWG), headed by Steve Crocker, loosely organized to develop host level protocols for communication over the ARPANET. (:vgc:)
Tymnet built as part of Tymshare service (:vgc:)
1969
ARPANET commissioned by DoD for research into networking
Nodes are stood up as BBN builds each IMP [Honeywell DDP-516 mini computer with 12K of memory]; AT&T provides 50kbps lines
Node 1: UCLA (30 August, hooked up 2 September)
•   Function: Network Measurement Center
•   System,OS: SDS SIGMA 7, SEX
•   Diagram of the first host to IMP connection
Node 2: Stanford Research Institute (SRI) (1 October)
•   Network Information Center (NIC)
•   SDS940/Genie
•   Doug Engelbart's project on "Augmentation of Human Intellect"
Node 3: University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) (1 November)
•   Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics
•   IBM 360/75, OS/MVT
Node 4: University of Utah (December)
•   Graphics
•   DEC PDP-10, Tenex
Diagram of the 4-node ARPAnet
First Request for Comment (RFC): "Host Software" by Steve Crocker (7 April)
RFC 4: Network Timetable
First packets sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he tried logging into SRI. The first attempt resulted in the system crashing as the letter G of LOGIN was entered. (October 29) [ Log entry ]
Univ of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State Univ establish X.25-based Merit network for students, faculty, alumni (:sw1:)
________________________________________
1970s
1970
First publication of the original ARPANET Host-Host protocol: C.S. Carr, S. Crocker, V.G. Cerf, "HOST-HOST Communication Protocol in the ARPA Network," in AFIPS Proceedings of SJCC (:vgc:)
First report on ARPANET at AFIPS: "Computer Network Development to Achieve Resource Sharing" (March)
ALOHAnet, the first packet radio network, developed by Norman Abramson, Univ of Hawaii, becomes operational (July) (:sk2:)
•   connected to the ARPANET in 1972
ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP), first host-to-host protocol
First cross-country link installed by AT&T between UCLA and BBN at 56kbps. This line is later replaced by another between BBN and RAND. A second line is added between MIT and Utah
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
BBN starts building IMPs using the cheaper Honeywell 316. IMPs however are limited to 4 host connections, and so BBN develops a terminal IMP (TIP) that supports up to 64 terminals (September)
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 (SENDMSG) and an experimental file transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)
1972
Ray Tomlinson (BBN) modifies email program for ARPANET where it becomes a quick hit. The @ sign was chosen from the punctuation keys on Tomlinson's Model 33 Teletype for its "at" meaning (March)
Larry Roberts writes first email management program (RD) to list, selectively read, file, forward, and respond to messages (July)
International Conference on Computer Communications (ICCC) at the Washington D.C. Hilton with demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn. (October)
First computer-to-computer chat takes place at UCLA, and is repeated during ICCC, as psychotic PARRY (at Stanford) discusses its problems with the Doctor (at BBN).
International Network Working Group (INWG) formed in October as a result of a meeting at ICCC identifying the need for a combined effort in advancing networking technologies. Vint Cerf appointed first Chair. By 1974, INWG became IFIP WG 6.1 (:vgc:)
Louis Pouzin leads the French effort to build its own ARPANET - CYCLADES
RFC 318: Telnet specification
1973
First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of London (England) via NORSAR (Norway)
Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for Ethernet. The concept was tested on Xerox PARC's Alto computers, and the first Ethernet network called the Alto Aloha System (May) (:amk:)
Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research program at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back of envelope in a San Francisco hotel lobby (:vgc:)
Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at Univ of Sussex, Brighton, UK (:vgc:)
RFC 454: File Transfer specification
Network Voice Protocol (NVP) specification (RFC 741) and implementation enabling conference calls over ARPAnet. (:bb1:)
SRI (NIC) begins publishing ARPANET News in March; number of ARPANET users estimated at 2,000
ARPA study shows email composing 75% of all ARPANET traffic
Christmas Day Lockup - Harvard IMP hardware problem leads it to broadcast zero-length hops to any ARPANET destination, causing all other IMPs to send their traffic to Harvard (25 December)
RFC 527: ARPAWOCKY
RFC 602: The Stockings Were Hung by the Chimney with Care
1974
Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" 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:)
1975
Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now DISA)
First ARPANET mailing list, MsgGroup, is created by Steve Walker. Einar Stefferud soon took over as moderator as the list was not automated at first. A science fiction list, SF-Lovers, was to become the most popular unofficial list in the early days
John Vittal develops MSG, the first all-inclusive email program providing replying, forwarding, and filing capabilities.
Satellite links cross two oceans (to Hawaii and UK) as the first TCP tests are run over them by Stanford, BBN, and UCL
"Jargon File", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:)
Shockwave Rider by John Brunner (:pds:)
1976
Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an email on 26 March from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern
UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed with UNIX one year later.
Multiprocessing Pluribus IMPs are deployed
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 over TELENET)
RFC 733: Mail specification
Tymshare spins out Tymnet under pressure from TELENET. Both go on to develop X.25 protocol standard for virtual circuit style packet switching (:vgc:)
First demonstration of ARPANET/SF Bay Packet Radio Net/Atlantic SATNET operation of Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:)
1978
TCP split into TCP and IP (March)
RFC 748: TELNET RANDOMLY-LOSE Option
1979
Meeting between Univ of Wisconsin, DARPA, National Science Foundation (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.
On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie emails the MsgGroup a suggestion of adding some emotion back into the dry text medium of email, such as -) for indicating a sentence was tongue-in-cheek. Though flamed by many at the time, emoticons became widely used
________________________________________
1980s
1980
ARPANET grinds to a complete halt on 27 October because of an accidentally-propagated status-message virus
First C/30-based IMP at BBN
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

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. TERENA's aim is to "promote and participate in the development of a high quality international information and telecommunications infrastructure for the benefit of research and education" (October)
After noticing that many network software vendors used domain.com in their documentation examples, Bill Woodcock and Jon Postel register the domain. Sure enough, after looking at the domain access logs, it was evident that many users were using the example domain in configuring their applications.
RFC 1605: SONET to Sonnet Translation
RFC 1606: A Historical Perspective On The Usage Of IP Version 9
RFC 1607: A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY
Countries connecting to NSFNET: Algeria (DZ), Armenia (AM), Bermuda (BM), Burkina Faso (BF), China (CN), Colombia (CO), Jamaica (JM), Jordan (JO), Lebanon (LB), Lithuania (LT), Macao (MO), Morocco (MA), New Caledonia (NC), Nicaragua (NI), Niger (NE), Panama (PA), Philippines (PH), Senegal (SN), Sri Lanka (LK), Swaziland (SZ), Uruguay (UY), Uzbekistan (UZ)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, uk, gov, de, ca, mil, au, org, net
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
Neda Rayaneh Institute (NRI), Iran's first commercial provider, comes online, connecting via satellite to Cadvision, a Canadian provider (:rm1:)
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:)
Sun launches JAVA on May 23
RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time
Radio HK, the first commercial 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
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)
A number of Net related companies go public, with Netscape leading the pack with the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)
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 (http://www.vatican.va/)
The Canadian Government comes on-line (http://canada.gc.ca/)
The first official Internet wiretap was successful in helping the Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) apprehend 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 tattooed on his arm (:wired496:)
RFC 1882: The 12-Days of Technology Before Christmas
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)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, gov, mil, org, de, uk, ca, au
Technologies of the Year: WWW, Search engines
Emerging Technologies: Mobile code (JAVA, JAVAscript), Virtual environments (VRML), Collaborative tools
Hacks of the Year: The Spot (Jun 12), Hackers Movie Page (12 Aug)
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)
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, PLO Leader Yasser Arafat, and Phillipine President Fidel Ramos meet for ten minutes in an online interactive chat session on 17 January.
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
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)
Domain name tv.com sold to CNET for US$15,000
New York's Public Access Networks Corp (PANIX) is shut down after repeated SYN attacks by a cracker using methods outlined in a hacker magazine (2600)
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, .nom. The IAHC plan also calls for a competing group of domain 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.
RFC 1925: The Twelve Networking Truths
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
Country domains registered: Qatar (QA), Central frican Republic (CF), 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-Herzegovina (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)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, uk, de, jp, us, mil, ca, au
Hacks of the Year: US Dept of Justice (17 Aug), CIA (19 Sep), Air Force (29 Dec), UK Labour Party (6 Dec), NASA DDCSOL - USAFE - US Air Force (30 Dec)
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.
CA*net II launched in June to provide Canada's next generation Internet using ATM/SONET
In protest of the DNS monopoly, AlterNIC's owner, Eugene Kashpureff, hacks DNS so users going to www.internic.net end up at www.alternic.net
Domain name business.com sold for US$150,000
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
RFC 2100: The Naming of Hosts
Country domains registered: Falkland Islands (FK), East Timor (TP), R of Congo (CG), Christmas Island (CX), Gambia (GM), Guinea-Bissau (GW), Haiti (HT), Iraq (IQ), Libya (LY), Malawi (MW), Martinique (MQ), Montserrat (MS), Myanmar (MM), French Reunion Island (RE), Seychelles (SC), Sierra Leone (SL), Somalia (SO), Sudan (SD), Tajikistan (TJ), Turkmenistan (TM), Turks and Caicos Islands (TC), British Virgin Islands (VG), Heard and McDonald Islands (HM), French Southern Territories (TF), British Indian Ocean Territory (IO), Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (SJ), St Pierre and Miquelon (PM), St Helena (SH), South Georgia/Sandwich Islands (GS), Sao Tome and Principe (ST), Ascension Island (AC), US Minor Outlying Islands (UM), Mayotte (YT), Wallis and Futuna Islands (WF), Tokelau Islands (TK), Chad Republic (TD), Afghanistan (AF), Cocos Island (CC), Bouvet Island (BV), Liberia (LR), American Samoa (AS), Niue (NU), Equatorial New Guinea (GQ), Bhutan (BT), Pitcairn Island (PN), Palau (PW), DR of Congo (CD)
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, edu, net, jp, uk, de, us, au, ca, mil
Hacks of the Year: Indonesian Govt (19 Jan, 10 Feb, 24 Apr, 30 Jun, 22 Nov), NASA (5 Mar), UK Conservative Party (27 Apr), Spice Girls (14 Nov)
Technologies of the Year: Push, Multicasting
Emerging Technologies: Push, Streaming Media [:twc:]
1998
Hobbes' Internet Timeline is released as RFC 2235 & FYI 32
US Depart of Commerce (DoC) releases the Green Paper outlining its plan to privatize DNS on 30 January. This is followed up by a White Paper on June 5
La Fête de l'Internet, a country-wide Internet fest, is held in France 20-21 March
Web size estimates range between 275 (Digital) and 320 (NEC) million pages for 1Q
Companies flock to the Turkmenistan NIC in order to register their name under the .tm domain, the English abbreviation for trademark
Internet users get to be judges in a performance by 12 world champion ice skaters on 27 March, marking the first time a television sport show's outcome is determined by its viewers.
Network Solutions registers its 2 millionth domain on 4 May
Electronic postal stamps become a reality, with the US Postal Service allowing stamps to be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
Canada kicks off CA*net 3, the first national optical internet
Compaq pays US$3.3million for altavista.com
CDA II and a ban on Net taxes are signed into US law (21 October)
ABCNews.com accidentally posts test US election returns one day early (2 November)
Indian ISP market is deregulated in November causing a rush for ISP operation licenses
US DoC enters into an agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers (ICANN) to establish a process for transitioning DNS from US Government management to industry (25 November)
San Francisco sites without off-city mirrors go offline as the city blacks out on 8 December
Chinese government puts Lin Hai on trial for "inciting the overthrow of state power" for providing 30,000 email addresses to a US Internet magazine (December) [ He is later sentenced to two years in jail ]
French Internet users give up their access on 13 December to boycott France Telecom's local phone charges (which are in addition to the ISP charge)
Open source software comes of age
RFC 2321: RITA -- The Reliable Internetwork Troubleshooting Agent
RFC 2322: Management of IP numbers by peg-dhcp
RFC 2323: IETF Identification and Security Guidelines
RFC 2324: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)
Country domains registered: Nauru (NR), Comoros (KM)
Bandwidth Generators: Winter Olympics (Feb), World Cup (Jun-Jul), Starr Report (11 Sep), Glenn space launch
Top 10 Domains by Host #: com, net, edu, mil, jp, us, uk ,de, ca, au
Hacks of the Year: US Dept of Commerce (20 Feb), New York Times (13 Sep), China Society for Human Rights Studies (26 Oct), UNICEF (7 Jan)
Technologies of the Year: E-Commerce, E-Auctions, Portals
Emerging Technologies: E-Trade, XML, Intrusion Detection
1999
Internet access becomes available to the Saudi Arabian (.sa) public in January
vBNS sets up an OC48 link between CalREN South and North using Juniper M40 routers
First Internet Bank of Indiana, the first full-service bank available only on the Net, opens for business on 22 February
IBM becomes the first Corporate partner to be approved for Internet2 access
European Parliament proposes banning the caching of Web pages by ISPs
The Internet Fiesta kicks off in March across Europe, building on the success of La Fête de l'Internet held in 1998
US State Court rules that domain names are property that may be garnished
MCI/Worldcom, the vBNS provider for NSF, begins upgrading the US backbone to 2.5GBps
A forged Web page made to look like a Bloomberg financial news story raised shares of a small technology company by 31% on 7 April.
ICANN announces the five testbed registrars for the competitive Shared Registry System on 21 April: AOL, CORE, France Telecom/Oléane, Melbourne IT, Register.com. 29 additional post-testbed registrars are also selected on 21 April, followed by 8 on 25 May, 15 on 6 July, and so on for a total of 98 by year's end. The testbed, originally scheduled to last until 24 June, is extended until 10 September, and then 30 November. The first registrar to come online is Register.com on 7 June
First large-scale Cyberwar takes place simultaneously with the war in Serbia/Kosovo
Abilene, the Internet2 network, reaches across the Atlantic and connects to NORDUnet and SURFnet
The Web becomes the focal point of British politics as a list of MI6 agents is released on a UK Web site. Though forced to remove the list from the site, it was too late as the list had already been replicated across the Net. (15 May)
Activists Net-wide target the world's financial centers on 18 June, timed to coincide with the G8 Summit. Little actual impact is reported.
MCI/Worldcom launches vBNS+, a commercialized version of vBNS targeted at smaller educational and research institutions
Somalia gets its first ISP - Olympic Computer (Sep)
ISOC approves the formation of the Internet Societal Task Force (ISTF). Vint Cerf serves as first chair
Free computers are all the rage (as long as you sign a long term contract for Net service)
.ps is registered to Palestine (11 Oct)
vBNS reaches 101 connections
business.com is sold for US$7.5million (it was purchased in 1997 for US$150,000 (30 Nov)
RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service
RFC 2550: Y10K and Beyond
RFC 2551: The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III
RFC 2555: 30 Years of RFCs
RFC 2626: The Internet and the Millennium Problem (Year 2000)
Top 10 TLDs by Host #: com, net, edu, jp, uk, mil, us, de, ca, au
Hacks of the Year: Star Wars (8 Jan), .tp (Jan), USIA (23 Jan), E-Bay (13 Mar), US Senate (27 May), NSI (2 Jul), Paraguay Gov't (20 Jul), AntiOnline (5 Aug), Microsoft (26 Oct), UK Railtrack (31 Dec)
Technologies of the Year: E-Trade, Online Banking, MP3
Emerging Technologies: Net-Cell Phones, Thin Computing, Embedded Computing
Viruses of the Year: Melissa (March), ExploreZip (June)
________________________________________
2000s
2000
The US timekeeper (USNO) and a few other time services around the world report the new year as 19100 on 1 Jan
A massive denial of service attack is launched against major web sites, including Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay in early February
Web size estimates by NEC-RI and Inktomi surpass 1 billion indexable pages
ICANN redelegates the .pn domain, returning it to the Pitcairn Island community (February)
Various domain name hijackings took place in late May and early June, including internet.com, bali.com, and web.net
A testbed allowing the registration of domain names in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean begins operation on 9 November. This testbed only allows the second-level domain to be non-English, still forcing use of .com, .net, .org. The Chinese government blocks internal registrations, stating that registrations in Chinese are its sovereignty right
ICANN selects new TLDs: .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, .pro (16 Nov)
These domains will not be available until sometime in 2001 after contract negotiation and US Dept of Commerce approval
RFC 2795: The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite
Hacks of the Year: RSA Security (Feb), Apache (May), Western Union (Sep), Microsoft (Oct)
Technologies of the Year: ASP, Napster
Emerging Technologies: Wireless devices, IPv6
Viruses of the Year: Love Letter (May)
Lawsuits of the Year: Napster, DeCSS
________________________________________
Growth
Internet | Networks | WWW | USENET | Security