[ih] History from 1960s to 2025

[Jack Haverty]

The January/February 2026 issue of Foreign Affairs contains an article 
titled "How China Wins The Future".  Part of it discusses the Internet 
(section titled "Hardwire and Hard Power"), and their initiatives to 
create a replacement for TCP/IP and deploy the new technology of "New 
IP", to solve the perceived problem that today's Internet won't meet the 
needs of the future.

This reminded me of the efforts in the 1960s/70s which created the 
Internet, with TCP serving as the mechanism to solve the problem of how 
to interconnect the numerous different kinds of networks that were 
popping up all over.

While the future is interesting to discuss and debate, this list is 
about History.  I'm curious about what people think about how we got 
from the 1960s to 2026.

Here's my thoughts -- based of course only on my personal experience.  
I'd love to know what I got wrong or missed.

- 1960s: Licklider creates his vision of Intergalactic Network; ARPA 
creates the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), which 
initiates the creation of ARPANET.

- 1970s: ARPANET expanded; additional network mechanisms developed 
(SATNET), need for interconnectivity among disjoint networks motivates 
creation of TCP; ARPANET expands rapidly.

- 1980s: TCP implemented in multiple systems; US DoD declares it as a 
Standard and requires it to be present in military procurements; NBS 
(NIST) creates program to certify implementations; government efforts 
drive existing network (ARPANET) and all host systems to be converted 
from NCP to TCP on 1/1/1983; NSF expands use of Internet into 
non-military environments, and fosters the creation of the first 
self-supporting Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

- 1980s: LANs become pervasive; workstations and PCs emerge as 
alternatives to older mainframe systems; notion of "an internet" becomes 
popular; multiple companies (Novell, Xerox, IBM, Banyan, DEC, ...) 
create their own architectures, incompatible with others.  OSI continues 
to define yet another architecture intended to become a worldwide 
standard; ISPs proliferate.

- 1980s: US government embraces COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) policy, 
which encourages the development of commercial products for use in the 
TCP environment;  corporate representatives from tech companies begin to 
participate in Internet technology development and standardization 
efforts (IETF); DoD limits funding of custom systems and research in 
favor of using commercial products

- 1990s: Commercial users, and the public, get tired of waiting for the 
internet wars to end, notice that TCP technology is available, can be 
observed to work, and can solve their immediate IT problems; the TCP 
Internet grows rapidly in the general public worldwide; corporations 
deploy private "intranets" using TCP products; all competing internet 
architectures fade into oblivion

- 1990s: next generation protocol (IP V6) developed to address 
limitations of older TCP architecture; draft standard for next 
generation TCP (V6) created in 1998

- 1990s?: technology development efforts abandon the role of 
orchestrating replacement of old technology "in the field" with newer 
versions that remove vulnerabilities or introduce additional 
functionality.  Technologies in the Internet are now developed, and 
"standardized", and then "put on the shelf" for others to find and use

- 2017: full standard for next generation TCP (V6) defined; 
implementations are in use, but many systems continue to use older TCP (V4)

- 2026: after 30+ years, existing Internet has not yet successfully 
supplanted old V4 TCP with slightly newer V6 TCP;  many unsolved issues 
remain in areas of concern, such as spam, cybercrime, identity theft, 
intellectual property protection, "phishing", and others, not addressed 
even by the newer V6 architecture; US, EU, and other governments seem to 
avoid involvement in researching or orchestrating further technology 
development to counter such problems.   Corporate efforts seem to be 
continuing to create competing "silos" of technology, hoping to be the 
winner in the marketplace.

- 2026: China creates initiative to define a "New IP" to meet the needs 
of the future; begins deployment of associated new technology in 
countries which have embraced the initiative.

Your thoughts?
/Jack Haverty


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