Resources

Internet Governance: Module 1: History of the Internet

Additional Resources:
1. For further information about Paul Baran’s work at RAND, see Paul Baran and the
Origins of the Internet.
2. For further information on Donald Davies’ work at the UK’s National Physical
Laboratory, see BBC News The Accelerator of the Modern Age (2008) and The
Living Internet’s article UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and Donald Davies.
3. Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the
Internet (1998).
4. Internet Society, The Internet and the Public Switched Telephone Network:
Disparities, Differences, and Distinctions.
5. Internet Society, Brief History of the Internet.
6. Throughout the course, you may find it helpful to check acronyms with the
Internet Governance Acronym Glossary
7. For more information on Vint Cerf and TCP/IP, see the Wikipedia article on Cerf, as
well as The Living Internet’s article Vinton Cerf – TCP/IP Co-designer.
8. For information on Bob Khan and TCP/IP, see the Wikipedia article on Khan, as
well as The Living Internet’s article Robert Khan – TCP/IP Co-designer.
9. Vint Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, RFC 675: Specification of Internet
Transmission Control Program (1974).
10. For more information on Vint Cerf and TCP/IP, see the Wikipedia article on Cerf, as
well as The Living Internet’s article Vinton Cerf – TCP/IP Co-designer.
11. For information on Bob Khan and TCP/IP, see the Wikipedia article on Khan, as
well as The Living Internet’s article Robert Khan – TCP/IP Co-designer.
12. Vint Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, RFC 675: Specification of Internet
Transmission Control Program (1974).
13. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) hosts Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s Longer
Biography.
14. An Internet history timeline which chronicles key Internet events and technology
developments is the Hobbes timeline, by Robert H. Zakon. A concise timeline from
the Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century is available here.
15. The Computer History Museum’s History of the Internet provides a comprehensive
view of key actors and hardware developments through the early 1990s.
16. The Internet Society article Brief History of the Internet by Vint Cerf et al. (quoted
above) provides an excellent detailed review of formative Internet developments.
17. The Virtual Policy Network has produced a useful timeline of Internet governance
developments that shows the increasing range of actors and issue areas,
beginning with events in the 1960s leading up to 2009.
18. The Internet Society (ISOC) also developed an overview of the basic Internet
Ecosystem showing the complex responsibilities and interactions that have
emerged from the Internet Model of development. Other ecosystems might
include wider stakeholder participation and technologies such as the Internet of
things and artificial intelligence.
19. The Panel on Global Internet Governance Cooperation Mechanisms produced its
report on the Internet Governance ecosystem in 2014, entitled Towards a
Collaborative, Decentralised, Internet Governance Ecosystem. This report reflects
the work of the panel to ‘identify the framework, principles, and processes to
evolve the IG ecosystem, and present a road-map for the evolution of global
Internet cooperation.’
20. The work of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation
outlines updated developments and recommendations in Internet governance and
digital cooperation with a wider view, including current policy.
Resources
Internet Governance: Module 1: History of the Internet

21. Documents of the World Summit on the Information Society

22. As the Internet grew, it became an important part of the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS) process. WSIS is based on the 2003 Geneva Declaration
of Principles, which included three important articles mentioning the Internet, B6)
48, 49, and 50.
23. RFC 2555: 30 Years of RFCs (1999), provides reflections on the history, role and
development of RFCs.
24. Fifty Years of RFCs: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-fiftyyears/
25. On the importance of RFCs in shaping the nature of the Internet and its
governance, see an op-ed by Steve Crocker in the New York Times, How the
Internet Got its Rules (2009).
26. See One History of DNS (2001), for one person’s recount of the evolution of the
DNS and the creation of ICANN.
27. Cade Metz for WIRED magazine, Why does the Net Still Work on Christmas? Paul
Mockapetris (2012).
28. Oxford Internet Institute workshops on the DNS: History and Future (2008).
29. For further information on ICANN’s new generic TLD program, see the dedicated
area on ICANN’s website. NTIA, NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet
Domain Name Functions (2014).
30. Vint Cerf, Bob Khan, and Lyman Chapin, Announcing the Internet Society (1992).
31. The Internet Society’s website.
32. For information on ICANN’s role and mandate, see What Does ICANN Do?
33. Joel Hruska, Happy Birthday, ARPANET: The Internet’s Grandfather First Connected
50 Years Ago (2019) looks back on 50 years of the Internet.
34. See information about the Internet Society’s involvement in WSIS and the IGF.
35. ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model
36. History of the Internet: https://mir-s3-cdn-
cf.behance.net/project_modules/disp/c09b3949007311.560848d4cb453.jpg