The history of the Internet told by its creators in a unique book

The history of the Internet told by its creators in a unique book

What was the true origin of the Internet? For what purpose was it created? Does your invention respond to the possibility of an eventual nuclear attack? Is it true that the invention was "purely" American? Is the Internet “daughter” of ARPAnet? Was it created, as you think, by a small group of people from a government agency? Was it a public or private initiative? What role did Cyclades and CATEnet play? Who Invented the First Router? Who Invented Ethernet? We can send emails thanks to the creator of the DNS, who was it? What do we owe Jon Postel? And Norm Abramson? When was the first server created?… Every day we use the Internet in our personal and professional lives, yet we know very little about it, about its true history.

A book has just been published which is the result of twenty years of research on the origins of the Internet: How we create the Internet. Its author, Andreu Veà, had written his doctoral thesis on the subject; thesis prefaced by Vint Cerf, considered one of the fathers of the Network. It was Cerf himself who, later, encouraged him to move to Stanford and initiate a series of interviews with all those engineers and scientists who made possible what we know today as Internet. And it is that the paternity of the Network is shared. But who is Andreu Veà?

Andreu Veà, the Internet biographer

Andreu Veà is a Ph.D. engineer in Telecommunications (Internet specialty), a higher engineer in Electronics, a post-doctorate in History of Science and Technology from Stanford University and a master's degree in Information Technology Management. He is also co-founder and president of the Internet Society (ISOC-ES) and has been elected the only European member of the Internet Hall of Fame (advisory board).

The author has spent two decades interviewing the creators of the Internet (more than 300 interviews), has traveled to his place of residence to be able to speak in depth with them about their respective works and has had access to previously unpublished material, such as archives on the subject that are in the Pentagon, in Washington.

The result is a work that clarifies inaccuracies, dismantles myths and shows that the origins of the Internet are found in the works of various specialists: “Looking for the origins of the Internet, most of the books focus on the developments of ARPAnet but none are complete nor does it provide a clear and definitive theory. There are different versions and visions depending on who we talk to. Some will say that packet switching represents the birth of the Internet, others that it is the TCP protocol; Some emphasize telecommunications operators and the private sector, and others argue that it was only the public sector. This book, on the other hand, focuses on the stories of the Internet pioneers who explain in first person how they created the Internet, the network that we know and use today, on a regular basis ”, declares Andreu Veà.

A paper book that allows you to listen to interviews on your mobile phone

The methodology that Veà has followed to elaborate this monumental and rigorous work responds to his training as a scientist. As he explains in the presentations he makes about the book, in each interview he invested between one and six years of work: managing the contacts, preparing them, making them, editing the hours of material and, later, contrasting the information that each interviewee had given him with the opinion of other colleagues to confirm the veracity of the data and the statements. This scientific rigor, which has been followed in all other issues related to the contents of the book, does not affect the intelligibility of the work: it is entertaining, fun and arouses and increases our curiosity as we read it.

One of the first questions that one asks after having documented about the book is why it has been published on paper in the middle of the digital age. The author's answer is clear: it is unlikely that, for example, we will continue to use Pdf files in the future. However, we will continue to read books. So how have you managed to allow us to listen to the interviews with the Internet pioneers? Veà has used a system that allows it: through QR codes printed on the pages of the book one can listen to them on their mobile phone. Witty.

How We Create Internet has been published, for the moment, only in Spanish. However, the interviews it includes are recorded in English; language in which the book will be available soon.

One of the first questions that one asks after having documented about the book is why it has been published on paper in the middle of the digital age. The author's answer is clear: it is unlikely that, for example, we will continue to use Pdf files in the future. However, we will continue to read books. So how have you managed to allow us to listen to the interviews with the Internet pioneers? Veà has used a system that allows it: through QR codes printed on the pages of the book one can listen to them on their mobile phone. Witty.

Other essential names

How We Create Internet includes, among much other information, the testimonies of the four main fathers of the Internet - Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, Larry Roberts and Sir Tim Berners-Lee - as well as interviews with other essential names such as Larry Page, co-founder of Google ; John Ciofi, creator of ADSL; Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet; Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse, and Ray Tomlinson, the inventor of e-mail, whom he convinced to give him the interview by sending him a message that contained a single word, “zucchini”: the password that Tomlinson used on the ARPAnet network; password that, of course, almost no one knew and that Andreu Veà managed to find out to show his true interest in interviewing him.

In the section Scientists who changed the world we have uploaded a profile of the four great fathers of the Internet. Undoubtedly, the information, anecdotes and knowledge that Andreu Veà gives us about them in his book is much richer, but we wanted to pay them our little tribute. Thanks to them, and to all the other pioneers of the Network, in Inmesol we can not only communicate with our clients around the world by email and Skype, have a corporate website or publish this blog, we can also implement in generator sets that we manufacture technology that allows client companies to control them remotely over the Internet.

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