The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizen

The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and

the Emergence of the Netizen

Ronda Haubenronda@panix.com

WSIS

The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and

the Emergence of the Netizen

Ronda Haubenronda@panix.com

The Myth

“Internet was created within the US by the US Department of Defense as a way to have a communication system that would survive a nuclear war”

The Realities

• The Internet is a result of scientific and technical collaboration that was international in its earliest stages

• There was a vision guiding and inspiring its international collaborative development

• The Internet is a solution to the Multiple Network Problem - to connect dissimilar networks

Multiple Networks Problem

• NPL (National Physical Laboratories) U.K.

• ARPANET - USA

• CYCLADES - France

US

Norway

UK

International TCP/IP Research

Josiah Macy Jr Conferences on Cybernetics

Ten conferences 1942-1953

1915-1990

In June 1954 the Conference on Problems in Human Communicationand Control sponsored by the Foundation and the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology brought together experimental psychologists,physicists, engineers, and mathematicians for discussion of Mutual benefit.

Licklider’s PhD thesis:

“An Electrical Investigation of The Frequency-Localization in the Auditory

Cortex of the Cat”

Licklider and Taylor wrote about modeling:

“By far the most numerous, most sophisticated and most important models are those that reside in men's minds.”

The Computer as a Communications Device

Sutherland’s Sketchpad

Sketchpad - being able to change complex sketchesand to see the effects on other aspects of a complex model.

Individual mental model

"In richness, plasticity, facility and economy,

the mental model has no peer, but in other

respects it has shortcomings."

Short comings of the individual mental model

• It can be observed and manipulated only by one person

• Society rightly distrusts the modeling done by a single mind

Cooperative modeling

• Individual models can be compared and brought into some degree of accord.

• Cooperation in the construction, maintenance and use of a model

• A plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in which processes will flow into consequences

• A common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all

Sir Charles Percy Snow

Brownian Motion

Something like Brownian Motion

• All kinds of people all over the place suddenly get smitten with the same sort of desire, with the same sort of interest at the same time.

• This forms a concentration of pressure and of direction.

• These concentrations of pressure gradually filter their way through to the people whose nominal responsibility it is to put the legislation into a written form.

JCR Licklider

Information ProcessingTechniques Office(IPTO) 1962-1986

JCR LickliderIvan SutherlandBob TaylorLarry RobertsJCR Licklider . . .Robert Kahn . . .Saul Amarel

“Voting in the absence of understanding defines only the public attitude, not the public interest.”

To determine the public interest

• Many public spirited individuals must study, model, analyze, argue, write, criticize, and work out each issue and each problem until they reach consensus or determine that none can be reached

• Only then may there be the reason to vote

“Computer power to the people is essential to the realization of a future in which most citizens are informed about, and interested in, the process of government .”

The concept of net.citizen or netizen to identify and describethe emergence of Netizens

The Net and the Netizens:The Impact the Net has onPeople’s Lives Michael Hauben, July 6, 1993

Netizens

“They are people who understand it takes effort and action on each and everyone's part to make the Net a regenerative and vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our world, a better place.” Michael Hauben, 1995

“Netizens participate to help make the Net both an intellectual and a social resource.”

Michael HaubenFurther Thoughts about Netizens

Tunis November 2005

There is a need for an appropriate model for the management of the

Internet’s international infrastructure

Conclusion

• The online plastic, collaborative process which makes possible interactive modeling is a helpful analogy for the positive nature of the Internet

• The social consciousness of users as netizens has evolved and spread as the Internet has evolved and spread

“Netizens participate to help make the Net both an intellectual and a social resource.”