Vous consultezAux origines américaines de l’Internet : projets militaires, intérêts commerciaux, désirs de communauté

The Ancestors of the Internet : Military Origins, Commercial Interests, and a Search for Communities, 1962-1993
The Internet had its technical roots in a program sponsored by the “Advanced Research Projects Agency” (ARPA), sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department, at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. But those roots, which have been well-documented, tell only part of the Internet’s history. The Internet also has significant social and political components, neither of which were present in the ARPANET. The Internet, especially as it is accessed by the World Wide Web, is an expression of the interplay of technical, social, political, and economic forces. This essay discusses the role of ARPA in the context of other, non-military attempts to use the technology of personal computers and microelectronics, to communicate, share information, and to make money.