Special Issue 5/1/02 In Memory of Michael Hauben: Discoverer of Netizens Volume 11 No. 1
Introduction
This special issue of the Amateur Computerist is
dedicated to the life and work of Michael Hauben.
Michael helped found and edit this publication. He
gave it its name reflecting that it is intended for those
who love computing. Much of Michael’s writing ap-
peared in the Amateur Computerist from its beginning
in 1988 until his untimely death in June 2001. In our
pages he published and explained and popularized his
vision of a democratizing, interactive and enlivening
Internet populated by many citizens of the net -
netizens.
The first article explores the emergence of the
concept of netizens. It builds to its conclusion that the
future can not be known but we can and should strive
for the future we want. Michael’s vision of the netizen
can be a guide. The next article tells some of the story
of Michael’s growing up and his connection with
Table of Contents
Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1
The Emergence of the Netizen. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1
Michael, Computers and the Net. . . . . . . . . . Page 7
Work And Life of Michael Hauben. . . . . . . Page 10
Some of Michael’s Accomplishments . . . . . Page 11
In Memoriam: a Netizen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 11
Giving Back to the World.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13
Thoughts Regarding Michael’s Work . . . . . Page 13
Mike: Sketches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 14
“Netizens” in Hebrew Dictionary. . . . . . . . . Page 15
A Tribute.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15
Writings by Michael Hauben
Preface: What is a Netizen?. . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16
What the Net Means to Me. . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 17
Declaration of the Rights of Netizens.. . . . Page 18
Democracy: SDS and the Net. . . . . . . . . . . Page 18
The Untold History of the ARPANET .. . . Page 26
Berlin Report: The Vision Lives.. . . . . . . . . Page 37
computing. It is followed by tributes to and remem-
brances of Michael. The bulk of the issue is a
collection of a few of Michael’s articles especially
concerning netizens, democracy and his under-
standing of the importance of the Net. The issue ends
with a report from a conference in Berlin where these
same concerns were discussed and debated.
We offer this issue not only to commemorate the
life and work of Michael Hauben but also because we
feel the relevancy of these for today.
The Emergence of the
Netizen,
Is the Early Vision Still
Viable?*
By Ronda Hauben
I want to explore a vision for the future, a vision
that builds on the inspiration provided the world by
the French concept of “the citizen.” The vision is
based on a new form of “citizen” that has grown up
with the Internet, called the “netizen.”
1
In 1992-1993, Michael Hauben, co-author of the
book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet
and the Internet was in his second year as a college
student at Columbia University in New York City.
Describing the research that he did which revealed the
emergence of Netizens, Michael writes:
I started using local bulletin board systems
(called BBS’s) in Michigan in 1985. After
several years of participation on both local
hobbyist-run computer bulletin board sys-
tems and the global Usenet, I began to
research Usenet and the Internet.
The computer bulletin board culture being described
Page 1
flourished in the U.S. and parts of Europe and else-
where in the 1980s to the early 1990s. As a hobby,
early computer users set up their own home computers
to make it possible for other people to call, leave
messages or programs, respond to the messages or
download the programs. They used modems and the
telephone lines to connect their computers. As a
teenager in Michigan in the 1980s, Michael was part
of this computer bulletin board community of sharing
ideas, discussion and software. From other computer
users who were part of this community, he learned
about the Internet. By the early 1990s the Internet had
become a network of networks that spanned the globe.
Michael also learned of Usenet which used
telephones, computers, modems and the Unix
operating system to send messages around the world.
Usenet and the Internet made it possible for computer
users to have online discussions with people from
other parts of the world, to share technical problems,
and to get help from a global online community.
“This was a new environment for me,” Michael
continues. “Little thoughtful conversation was en-
couraged in my high school. Since my daily life did
not provide places and people to talk with about real
issues and real world topics, I wondered why the
online experience encouraged such discussion and
consideration of others. Where did such a culture
spring from? And how did it arise? During my sopho-
more year of college in 1992, I was curious to explore
and better understand this new online world.”
(Netizens, “Preface,” page ix)
By 1995, Michael’s research was recognized
internationally, and he was invited to Japan to speak
at a conference about the subject of Netizens. In his
talk, he describes his early investigation of Usenet and
the Internet. He explains how “As part of course work
at Columbia (University) I explored these questions.
One professor encouraged me to use Usenet and the
Internet as places to conduct research. My research
was real participation in the online community,
exploring how and why these communication forums
functioned.” He continues, “I posted questions on
Usenet, mailing lists and freenets [Freenets were just
springing up at the time as community networks
which provided local people with free access to the
Internet- ed]. Along with my questions I would attach
some worthwhile preliminary research. People
respected my questions and found the preliminary
research helpful. The entire process was one of mutual
respect and sharing of research and ideas, fostering a
sense of community and participation.” (Netizens,
page ix)
Through this research process, he “found that on
the Net people willingly help each other and work
together to define and address issues important to
them.” (ibid.)
This was the experience people had on Internet
mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups in the early
1990s, before the web culture had developed and
spread. What one found online was a great deal of
discussion and interactive communication. This was
like the computer bulletin board culture. While the
computer bulletin boards put users in contact with
local computer users, Usenet newsgroups and Internet
mailing lists put users in contact with other computer
users from around the world. When Michael posted
his early research questions on Usenet and the
Internet he received about 60 responses from around
the globe. A number of these responses were detailed
descriptions of how people online had found the Net
an exciting and important contribution to their lives.
Elaborating on the progression of his research,
Michael writes:
My initial research concerned the origins
and development of the global discussion
forum Usenet. For my second paper, I
wanted to explore the larger Net, what it
was, and its significance. This is when my
research uncovered the remaining details
that helped me recognize the emergence of
Netizens. (Netizens, page x)
While people answering his questions were
describing how the Internet and Usenet were helpful
in their lives, many wrote about their efforts to
contribute to the Net, and to help spread access to
those not yet online. It is this second aspect of the
responses that Michael received which he recognized
as an especially significant aspect of his research.
Describing the characteristics of those he came to
call netizens, Michael writes:
There are people online who actively con-
tribute to the development of the Net. These
are people who understand the value of
collective work and the communal aspects
of public communications. These are the
people who discuss and debate topics in a
constructive manner, who e-mail answers to
people and provide help to newcomers, who
maintain FAQ’s, files and other public
information repositories. These are the
Page 2
people who discuss the nature and role of
this new communications medium. These are
the people who as citizens of the Net I
realized were Netizens. (Netizens, pages
ix-x)
Later Michael elaborates:
Net.citizen was used in Usenet... and this
really represented what people were telling
me - they were really net citizens - which
Netizen captures. To be a ‘Netizen’ is dif-
ferent from being a ‘citizen’. This is because
to be on the Net is to be part of a global
community. To be a citizen restricts someone
to a more local or geographical orientation.”
(From “Webchat with Michael Hauben,”
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/papers
/jr_gii_summit-webchat.txt, Jan. 25, 1996)
Michael was not referring to all users who get
online. He differentiates between netizens and others
online:
Netizens are not just anyone who comes
online. Netizens are especially not people
who come online for individual gain or
profit. They are not people who come to the
Net thinking it is a service. Rather, they are
people who understand that it takes effort
and action on each and everyone’s part to
make the Net a regenerative and vibrant
community and resource.” (Netizens, page x)
The talk Michael was invited to present in Japan,
was given in November 1995. The talk reflected his
experiences and online research from 1992-1995.
By 1995 the U.S. portions of the Internet was
becoming increasingly commercialized. There was an
effort on the part of the U.S. mass media to promote a
“get rich quick” view of the Internet. Many who have
come online since 1995 have not had the experience of
the early culture of interactive participation and
sharing that prevailed through the early 1990s. Instead
these origins are hidden and the early development of
the Internet is erroneously characterized as a period of
“exclusivity.” This is not an accurate description. By
the early 1990s users were finding ways to spread the
Internet through civic efforts like creating community
networks and Freenets and through creating gateways
between different networks like the Unix UUCP net-
work and the Internet and Fidonet. But by 1995 the
U.S. government no longer supported the efforts
which would continued the sharing and cooperative
culture of the early Internet. Instead there was a
vigorous campaign to commercialize and privatize the
U.S. portion of the public Internet. (The way this was
done was probably also in violation of U.S. con-
stitutional provisions with respect to the necessary
public processes to be undertaken before public
property is privatized. However, the commercial
pressure to carry the privatization out quickly left
little time to challenge the process.)
In response to the growing commercialization
and privatization, Michael and I set out to do research
into the origins of the sharing, participatory Internet
and Usenet culture to better understand the nature of
the interesting online world we had become part of in
the early 1990s.
In January 1994 we put a draft book online
documenting the origins of the online network and
culture it gave birth to. In his preface to the book
Michael wrote:
As more and more people join the online
community and contribute towards the
nurturing of the Net and towards the de-
velopment of a great shared social wealth,
the ideas and values of netizenship spread.
But with the increasing commercialization
and privatization of the Net, Netizenship is
being challenged. During such a period it is
valuable to look back at the pioneering
vision and actions that made the Net
possible and examine the lessons they
provide. (Netizens, page xi)
In the next section, I look back at the pioneering
vision.
Historical Origins of the Vision for the Net
Through studies of the history of the Internet, it
became evident that the vision for its development
had been pioneered by J.C.R. Licklider, an exper-
imental psychologist who was interested in human-
computer relation.
The world of the Netizen was envisioned
more than twenty-five years ago by J.C.R.
Licklider. Licklider brought to his leadership
of the U.S. Department of Defense’s ARPA
program a vision of the ‘intergalactic com-
puter network’. (Netizens, page 5)
Licklider introduced this vision when he gave
talks for the Advanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA) program inspiring people with the idea of the
importance of a new form of computing and of the
Page 3
potential for a network that would make it possible to
communicate utilizing computers.
In a paper that Licklider wrote with Robert Taylor
in 1968, they established several principles about how
the computer would play a helpful role in human
communication.
2
They wrote:
We believe that communicators have to do
something nontrivial with the information
they send and receive... to interact with the
richness of living information-- not merely in
the passive way that we have become accus-
tomed to using books and libraries, but as
active participants in an ongoing process,
bringing something to it through our inter-
action with it, and not simply receiving from
it by our connection to it.
We want to emphasize something beyond its
one-way transfer: the increasing significance
of the jointly constructive, the mutually rein-
forcing aspect of communication - the part
that transcends ‘now that we both know a
fact that only one of us knew before.’ When
minds interact, new ideas emerge. (Licklider
and Taylor, page 21)
Michael had experienced the importance of online
interaction among people with different ideas. From
the diversity, something new developed.
The network of various human commun-
icators quickly forms changes its goals, dis-
bands and reforms into new collaborations.
The fluidity of such group dynamics leads to
a quickening of the creation of new ideas.
Groups can form to discuss an idea, focus in
or broaden out, and reform to fit the new
ideas that have been worked out. (Netizens,
page 6)
The virtual space created on noncommercial net-
works was accessible to all, while the content on
commercial networks like CompuServe or America
On Line was only accessible by those who paid to
belong. (Netizens, pages 6-7)
By the early 1990s the research Licklider had
initiated at ARPA had led to the development of first
the ARPANET and then the Internet. Also an effort by
graduate students to have an online newsletter resulted
in a newsgroup network known as Usenet.
In 1996, Michael wrote that the Net should be like
a public utility - akin to postal/ telephone/water. While
he did not necessarily favor regulation, he explained
that regulation by government would be necessary to
have equal access available to all to the net. “The
market,” he predicted, “would not make the Internet
available in areas where it could not make a profit
(and that the Net would lose if all potential con-
tributors were not able to participate.)”
Michael saw the Internet and Usenet as a com-
munications public utility that needed government
support so that it could be available to all.
In response to a sensitivity among many online in
the U.S. about government regulation meaning
potential censorship, he emphasized that “Regulation
does not mean censorship.... Rather regulation means
putting the public interest over the commercial or
private interest. The Net is a shared commons, which
means it is important to make it available to the many,
and not grabable by the few.” (“WEBCHAT”)
By 1996, he found that:
Advertising will (and is) polluting the online
world. Those with money will quickly take
over the spaces (...and) those without money
will not be able to. And those thinking of
money are not thinking about a global
cooperative community - they are thinking
of themselves. (ibid.)
He believed that commercial entities could not
develop a network that would spread access to all, a
network that would encourage user participation in its
development. He also proposed the need for citizens
to find ways to influence their governments to counter
the pressure on government by commercial entities to
direct the Internet’s development in commercial
directions.
A cornerstone before commercialization was the
broad ranging discussion on Usenet or mailing lists.
This discussion encouraged the interaction and ex-
change of diverse viewpoints. “Only by seeing many
points of view,” writes Michael, “can one figure out
his or her position on a topic.” Many of the people
who responded to his research questions told how
they valued hearing from people with different ex-
periences and points of view. “Brainstorming among
different types of people,” he concludes, “produces
robust thinking.”
Information is no longer a fixed commodity
or resource on the Net. It is constantly being
added to and improved collectively,” he
observes, explaining, “The Net provides an
alternative to the normal channels and ways
of doing things. The Net allows for the
meeting of minds to form and develop new
Page 4
ideas. It brings people’s thinking processes
out of isolation and out into the open. Every
user of the Net gains the role of being special
and useful. The fact that every user has his or
her own opinions and ideas adds to the
general body of specialized knowledge on
the Net.
Each netizen thus becomes a special resource
valuable to the Net. (Netizens, pages 4-5)
In the course of researching the origins of net-
working, Michael discovered the source of the culture
of sharing and cooperation. Developing the Internet
was “not a commercial process.... The ‘selflessness’
grew out of the fact that technology required helping
each other to succeed - for people to develop and
further computing technologies.” He also recognized
the need for open code and for the open publication of
the technical developments. He writes:
The public funding of the ARPANET project
meant that the documentation would be made
public and freely available. The documen-
tation was neither restricted nor classified.
This open process encouraging com-
munication was necessary for these pioneers
to succeed. Research in new fields of study
requires that researchers cooperate and com-
municate in order to share their expertise.
Such openness is especially critical when no
one person has the answers in advance.
(Netizens, page 109)
Protection
Michael pointed out that both Usenet and the
Internet flourished in their early development because
they were protected from commercial use. He writes:
Usenet has not been allowed to be abused as
a profit- making venture by any one individ-
ual or group. Rather people are fighting to
keep it a resource that is helpful to society as
a whole. (Netizens, page 55)
Commercial usage was prohibited on the U.S.
part of the emerging Internet known as the NSFnet.
“There were Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) that
existed because these networks were initially founded
and financed by public money.”
This protection then extended to the networks
from other countries that connected to the NSFnet.
Since on the NSFnet, Michael writes, “commercial
usage was prohibited, which meant it was also
discouraged on other networks that gatewayed into the
NSFnet backbone.” (Netizens, page 29)
Recognizing the need for protection for such a
medium, Michael urges the importance of the net and
of protecting the people’s ability to develop its
potential. He writes, “For the people of the world, the
Net provides a powerful means for peaceful assembly.
Peaceful assembly allows people to take control. This
power deserves to be appreciated and protected. Any
medium that helps people hold or gain power is
something special that has to be protected.” (Netizens,
page 26)
Not only did government regulation provide a
protection from commercial abuse during the Net’s
development, but the developing network also pro-
vided a means for citizens to affect and influence their
governments.
A study Michael did of an online conference
sponsored by the U.S. government in November 1994
showed the potential of the Net for making available
to government a broad range of public views on an
important new development like the Internet.
Similarly, discussion groups such as those that Usenet
provided could grow to provide a forum through
which people would be able to influence their
governments. Also such forums would allow for
discussion and debate of issues in a mode that
facilitates mass participation. Such discussion,
Michael writes, “becomes a source of independent
information. An independent source is helpful in the
search for truth.”(Netizens, page 56) But universal
access to the Internet is necessary to fulfill its
promise. The Internet is identified as a “public good”
that needs to be accessible to all the population.
(Netizens, page 246)
Michael recognized the difference between the
view toward Usenet and the Internet that he received
in the responses to his research questions and the
view toward the future development of the Net which
was being proposed then by the U.S. government.
Describing the two different views, he writes:
The picture of the Internet painted by the
U.S. government has been one of an ‘infor-
mation superhighway’ or ‘information infra-
structure’ to which people could connect,
download some data or purchase some
goods, and then disconnect. This image is
very different from the... cooperative com-
munications forums on Usenet where every-
one.. (was welcomed to-ed) contribute. The
transfer of information is secondary... in
Page 5
contrast to the reality that the Internet and
Usenet (can-ed) provide a place where
people can share ideas, observations and
questions. (Netizens, page 254)
An important democratic development occurred.
Users on Usenet and mailing lists were able to be the
architects of the evolving networks. Michael writes:
The basic element of Usenet is a post. Each
individual post consists of a unique contri-
bution from a user, placed in a subject area
called a newsgroup. Usenet grew from the
ground up in a grassroots manner. (...) In its
simplest form, Usenet represents democracy.
Inherent in most mass media is central
control of content. Many people are influ-
enced by the decisions of a few.... Usenet,
however, is controlled by its audience....
Most of the material for Usenet is con-
tributed by the same people who actively
read Usenet. Thus, the audience to Usenet,
decides the content and subject matter to be
thought about, presented and debated.
The ideas that exist on Usenet come from the
mass of people who participate in it. In this
way, Usenet is an uncensored forum for
debate where many sides of an issue come
into view.... People control what happens on
Usenet. In this rare situation, issues and
concerns that are of interest and thus
important to the participants, are brought
up.... The range of Usenet connectivity is
international and quickly expanding into
every nook and cranny around the world.
This explosive expansion allows growing
communication with people around the
world. (Netizens, page 49)
From Usenet pioneers like Greg Woodbury,
Michael learned that, “it was the desire for commun-
ication that helped this social network develop and
expand.” While appreciating the potential of Usenet
and the Internet to help people make a better world
possible, many of those online in the mid 1990s also
anticipated how difficult it would be to bring this
about.
“People on the Net,” Michael writes, “need to be
active in order to bring about the best possible use of
the Net.” (Webchat)
It is interesting to see how closely the conceptual
vision Michael developed matched that of the vision
of J. C. R. Licklider.
Michael’s views were influenced by his ex-
perience online, his study and the comments he
received in response to his research questions from
people around the world.
3
Subsequent research shows Licklider had recog-
nized that to be able to develop computer and network
science and technology, an online community that
would encourage users to contribute was needed. This
collaborative community is what people found online
on Usenet and the Internet even into the early 1990s.
Also Licklider advocated support and protection
of the creative users online who were eager to explore
how to utilize the Internet in interesting and novel
new ways. Licklider staunchly maintained that users
had to be participants in making the decisions that
would develop and spread the Internet to all. He
warned that commercial entities could not develop a
network that would spread access to all or that would
encourage user participation in its development.
The Future
In a similar way Licklider emphasized the need
for a participatory evolution for the Internet, and for
there to be a public utility framework for its devel-
opment, Licklider sees that there is a public policy
choice that must be made. He writes:
(4)
It’s a choice between data and knowledge.
It’s either mere access to information or
interaction with information. And for man-
kind it implies either an enmeshment in si-
lent gears of the great electrical machine or
mastery of a new and truly plastic medium
for formulating ideas and for explaining,
expressing and communicating them.
Michael and a friend he met when he was invited
to Japan proposed a Netizens Association as a way to
take up the challenges of evolving a network that
would support interactive communication and user
participation.
5
Such an association could take on the
goals of the Netizen and netizenship. It could be a
help in the struggle to forge a net that will carry on
the vision of an interactive participatory network of
networks that Licklider introduced. In January 1993
Michael put together a Draft Declaration of the Rights
of Netizens which could be a starting point for a
collaboration of Netizens who are committed to the
original vision for the Internet. This vision has made
it possible for the Internet to develop an infrastructure
capable of promoting vibrant interactive participation
and resource sharing before the commercialization
Page 6
and privatization of the Net. Michael writes in the
Draft Declaration of the Rights of Netizens:
The Net is not a Service, it is a Right. It is
only valuable when it is collective and uni-
versal. Volunteer effort protects the intel-
lectual and technological common-wealth
that is being created. DO NOT UNDER-
ESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE NET
and NETIZENS.
6
Conclusion
The vision of J. C. R. Licklider and then of users
who Michael recognized were netizens has helped to
guide and spread a participatory and interactive new
form of communication infrastructure.
However the commercial model for the Internet’s
development is very different. It aims to create passive
users who are at the mercy of powerful corporations
both for their access to the Net and for the determin-
ation of how they can use the Net. The commercial
model is a challenge to the early vision of a partic-
ipatory Internet where all the population has the
possibility of gaining access and of shaping the
network form and content that is socially beneficial.
How will netizens support each other to continue
working toward their goal? Is there a need for a
netizens association as Michael and his friend from
Japan Hiro proposed? The path forward is not well
marked. In 1961, the linguist, Yehoshua Bar Hillel
speaking about the computer, pointed out that we
cannot know the future. If however we know what we
are striving for, we can work for the future we want to
have.
7
What future do we want to have?
The visions of J. C. R. Licklider and Michael
Hauben are of a participatory future. If we keep those
visions alive we keep alive the possibility that the
potential of the Internet will be realized.
Footnotes
1. This article is taken from a speech given during “Semaine
Europeenne” in Strasbourg, France sponsored by L’Institue
d’Etudes Politiques (IEP). More than three hundred students
attended and participated in a week long discussion of “Europe
& Internet” in the Winston Churchill building of the European
Parliament.
2. Licklider, J. C. R. and Robert Taylor. “The Computer as a
Communication Device.” In Science and Technology: For the
Technical Men in Management. No 76. April, 1968. Pages 21-31.
Also reprinted in In Memoriam: J. C. R. Licklider: 1915-1990.
Report 61. Systems Research Center. Digital Equipment
Corporation. Palo Alto, California. August 7, 1990. Pp. 21-41.12
William Stewart the creator of the site writes:
Joseph Carl Robnett ‘Lick’ Licklider developed the
idea of a universal network, spread his vision
throughout the IPTO, and inspired his successors to
realize his dream by creation of the ARPANET. He
also developed the concepts that led to the idea of the
Netizen.
4. Licklider, “Social Prospects of Information Utilities” in “The
Information Utility and Social Choice.” Sackman and Norman
Nie, editors, AFIPS Press, Montvale, 1970, p 6. Licklider
comments about the choice, “Thus though the crux is a switch,
it is not a switch in a level track. One branch goes down, one
up.”
5. Michael writes: After our visit, I wrote Hiro Takashi that I was
very happy to have met him and his friends from their computer
club at his University. In his e-mail when I returned home he
asked if there was a Netizens Association. He wrote in a P.S. in
an e-mail of Dec. 6 “Netizen association is available? If not in
Japan, I want to make it.” I told him I did not know of any and
asked him what he had in mind for a Netizens Association to do.
He responded:
I think [a] Netizen Association is a guide into
tomorrow’s Internet world. Internet and other
network[s] have a flood of electrical informations. So
people cannot swim very good in Internet. So Netizen
Association tell or advise how to swim or get selected
information. The association act as guide. Oh, and we
have to spread information about concept of netizen.
But making association process has many difficult
points, I think. So we have to give careful
consideration to the matter.
6. Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Netizens (Reproduced
in this issue. See page 18)
7. Y. Bar Hillel in Computers and the World of the Future,
edited by Martin Greenberger, MIT Press, 1962, page 324.
* This article is from an invited talk presented at the European
Parliament Building in Strasbourg, France. The talk was given on
February 26, 2002 to students as part of a panel on “the Internet
and Politics.”
Michael, Computers and the
Net
By Jay Hauben
For my whole family, it was wonderful that
Michael was born on May Day, May 1 1973 in
Boston, Massachusetts. He was one month early and
was born early in the morning as the sun began to
rise.
Michael went to nursery school and kindergarten
Page 7
in Boston. For his 5th birthday he surprised us by
asking for a hand held calculator as his birthday
present. We bought him one in the COOP at MIT
nearby. Michael and I had great fun using that
calculator to do iterations and other math tricks.
Shortly after that we moved to Detroit. There Michael
went to public school for one year. He was the only
first grader with an exhibit in the school’s Science
Fair. The school was a rough place and the staff
discouraged Michael from reading. So Ronda and I
were his teachers for another year in what we called
“home school.”
He first saw computers in the Toronto Science
Center in 1980 when he was 7 years old. There were
hands-on computer exhibits and an exhibit of
computer controlled robots. He was soon asking for
his own computer. By 1983 he bought himself a
Timex Sinclair 1000 computer for $100 out of his
birthday present money. The TS 1000 had 3K of
memory. We used a tape recorder as the storage
device and our TV as a monitor. Michael subscribed
to some computer magazines. He typed in some of the
“TRY THIS” programs and learned a lot from them.
He and I worked on a program that used only the 3K
memory. Using peeks and pokes, we were able to get
planes to drop bombs on moving ships!
We enrolled him in a TAG (Talented And Gifted)
summer program for junior high school kids (ages 12
and 13) in 1985. The first day the instructor (Mrs.
Brown) took off the cover of an Apple II computer to
show that it was just wires and components. She then
showed some simple BASIC commands. That night
Michael tried to write a BASIC program. Michael had
us buy a book called The Applesoft Tutorial and he
read his way through that whole book. He succeeded
in getting a graphic program to work. He called it
“BOO.” It was a skeleton that blinked its eyes and
made faces. We took Michael once a week to the
Wayne County Education Center where he began to
try Apple IIE, Texas Instrument, Atari and Com-
modore computers. Mostly he tried to figure out what
BASIC commands would work and asked questions
about the features and advantages of each. Michael
made friends with a neighbor, Tom, who was three
times his own age. Tom used Commodore computers.
When Tom bought a Commodore 64, Michael bought
himself his next Timex machine (Timex Sinclair
2068). But Timex made a deal with Commodore and
stopped supporting the 2068. Michael thought he had
the better computer but the deal made his obsolete.
Michael participated in computer clubs and
programming competitions in junior high school
which must have been around 1986. Ronda had won
a Compaq computer in 1985 in a drawing. She asked
for a modem with the prize rather than a hard drive
because she and Michael agreed that communication
was more important than storage. Michael used the
computer and modem to participate in local BBSs.
His first handle was “WizKid.” He was from then on
an active participant in the BBS communities in the
Detroit area. To begin with, he was one of their
youngest members. Somehow he found out about an
online time-sharing system set up near the University
of Michigan, called MNet. He became an active
member of that community even though the other
members were college students or older.
At first I was opposed to Michael’s being in
discussions of how to pick up women or things like
that. He realized my opposition and wrote an essay
about censorship in Nazi Germany that convinced me
that censoring him was wrong. His argument was if
the Nazi’s had not been censored by the previous
government, Hitler could not have come to power.
The German people would have been inoculated
against Nazism by the debate that would have
occurred with it in the earlier days.
From MNET, Michael heard, in the late 1980s,
about Usenet. At some point while still in Michigan,
Michael felt he was no longer a kid and changed his
handle to “Sentinel.” After using his handle for a
while, Michael found a thread on one of the BBSs
where posters were wondering whatever happened to
“WizKid,” the poster who made the discussions more
serious and important. I think Michael was very
happy to see that thread and he posted that he was
“WizKid,” now called “Sentinel.”
When Michael was 13 or 14 years old he left
word in some computer stores that he was willing to
help people who were unsure what to buy and how to
set up their computers. A few people called him and
I had to drive him to his “jobs.” He did not know
what to charge but whatever he asked, his customers
always gave him more.
In 1988, at age 15, Michael participated in the
founding meetings of the Amateur Computerist. One
discussion was what to name the new newsletter.
Beginning Computerist was suggested. Michael
argued that the newsletter would be for all lovers of
computing not just beginners. Since an amateur does
something for the love of it not for financial gain, his
Page 8
suggestion of Amateur Computerist won the approval
of all. Michael was also one of the most prolific
contributors of articles and editorial suggestions.
From his contacts on MNet Michael was able for
most of his high school years to work at the University
of Detroit. He was well loved there for the care with
which he set up people’s computers and taught them
how to use them. Michael went on to earn his
Columbia College work-study income by doing com-
puter support work in the student labs there.
When Michael first dialed into to MNet in the
mid 80s he was actually using the Internet. He first
explored Usenet and took full advantage of e-mail
when he started as a freshman at Columbia in Sept.
1991. He helped initiate the alt.amateur-comp news-
group on the U.S. Labor Day in 1992. And, as he has
written, that is when he started his research about the
value of the net to people (See the “Preface: What is
a Netizen,” pages ix-xi in Netizens).
In 1992, Michael started an independent study at
Columbia College of Columbia University. He wanted
to know if the net made a difference in people’s lives.
He posted a series of questions which are in the
appendix to chapter one of his book Netizens (pages
29 to 34 in the hard back edition). From the responses,
he discovered there were Netizens, people who saw
that the newly emerging net held the promise of a
fuller more interesting life for everyone who could get
connected. Michael became very enthusiastic about
the Net. It gave him a renewed personal hope much
the way the fall of the Berlin Wall had done three
years earlier. Michael shared his enthusiasm with his
professor at Columbia. The professor told Michael he
would fail the course if he did not rework his data and
analysis. The professor did not realize the importance
of what Michael had done. But Michael also shared
his enthusiasm with the online world. He gathered the
documentation to prove his scientific discovery was
valid. His work inspired especially Ronda and that
was the genesis of the Netizen book originally called
“Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net.”
In 1994, Michael and Ronda were excited to put
their first draft of their book Netizens online. They did
a book reading on Jan 10, 1994 and were happily
surprised when Michael’s old friend Tom attended.
They also both spoke at Columbia University about
netizens. After Michael received his BA in Computer
Science in 1995, he was, for one year, a Columbia e-
mail postmaster. He went on to earn a Masters degree
from Teachers College in Technology and Com-
munications in 1997. Michael considered it an honor
to speak at conferences in Japan, Canada, and Greece.
He took joy in seeing his work appear in journals and
books and in a hard cover edition of Netizens.
A Netizens mailing list grew out of Michael’s
invitation to speak about netizens in Japan. One
Japanese student reasoned that if there are netizens
there must be a netizens association that was
international. The student asked to join the Netizens
Association. Michael answered that one did not exist.
He and the student talked about starting such an
association. Michael suggested that a first step would
be a Netizens Association mailing list. The student’s
name is Hiroyuki Takahashi and the story of the
origin of the Netizens mailing list is at:
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/text/netizen-a-call.html.
The privatization and commercialization of the
net was very painful to Michael. He was overjoyed
that the Internet keeps spreading but was disappointed
that most users of the net didn’t see the net he had
envisioned. He was still trying to use the net for the
purposes he thought were its essence. He was on and
contributed to many mailing lists, especially those
having to do with music and the efforts of young
people to form communities around their common
interests in different music genre. On these lists
Michael reviewed music performances, analyzed
trends in the youth music culture and sent out pointers
to upcoming events. He also participated actively in
the events so his online life was coupled with his off
line life. He was however disappointed when some
people off line did not live up to the expectations he
had from his online contact with them.
Perhaps his biggest disappointment came when
he never found or was accepted at a graduate program
he could afford that would have allowed him to
continue his pioneering research that he did as an
undergraduate. But still regularly for the last 8 or 9
years Michael received inquires and requests for help.
Perhaps averaging one every two weeks, they were
from people all over the world who knew of
Michael’s work from online sources and felt he was
the expert or the best source of the help they needed.
Even during his bouts of depression, Michael
watched with interest the spread all over the world of
the concept of net citizens, his Netizens. Michael is
given credit for its origin in new dictionaries that are
appearing. The latest one may be a Hebrew dictionary
still in preparation. Michael spoke in the last few
months of his life of his hope and plans for a paper-
Page 9
back edition of the book Netizens. He gave thought to
a new introduction or epilogue which would begin, “It
is now the beginning of the 21
st
Century...” and would
take up to make a frank and scientific analysis of what
parts of his original vision still seem accurate and
what if anything has been derailed or needs to be
altered. It would be his fond wish that the details of
Internet technology be popularized and that the fight
for universal free or low cost access to Usenet, e-mail,
chat groups and all the other wonders of the net be
continued.
[Editor’s Note: The following is taken from a longer
english/inhalt/te/9180/1.html]
An Introduction to the Work
And Life of Michael Hauben
(1973-2001)
By John Horvath
Outside the community of netizens, Michael
Hauben was not very well known. His name was not
splashed across the front pages of newspapers or
propagated through mainstream broadcast media.
Even in “cyberspace” he was relatively unknown, like
most of us. Nevertheless, his words and ideas have
had a profound effect on all those who regularly use
the Internet, whether they realise it or not. Indeed, in
Europe it was the foundation to what is now com-
monly referred to throughout member states and
accession countries, not to mention the European
Commission itself, as the “information society.”
In a 1992 article entitled “The Net and Netizens:
The Impact the Net Has on People’s Lives,” Michael
Hauben wrote the following:
Welcome to the 21st Century. You are a
Netizen (a Net Citizen), and you exist as a
citizen of the world thanks to the global
connectivity that the Net makes possible.
You consider everyone as your compatriot.
You physically live in one country but you
are in contact with much of the world via the
global computer network. Virtually, you live
next door to every other single Netizen in the
world. Geographical separation is replaced
by existence in the same virtual space.
With these words the concept of a “Netizen” was
introduced and quickly spread into popular use. Later,
in a book called Netizens: On the History and Impact
of Usenet and the Internet, co-authored by Ronda
Hauben, herself a renown Netizen and ardent critic of
ICANN, Michael Hauben elaborated his concept:
My initial research concerned the origins
and development of the global discussion
forum Usenet. [...] I wanted to explore the
larger Net and what it was and its sig-
nificance. This is when my research un-
covered the remaining details that helped me
to recognize the emergence of Netizens.
There are people online who actively con-
tribute towards the development of the Net.
These people understand the value of
collective work and the communal aspects
of public communications. These are the
people who discuss and debate topics in a
constructive manner, who e-mail answers to
people and provide help to new-comers, who
maintain FAQ files and other public
information repositories, who maintain
mailing lists, and so on. These are people
who discuss the nature and role of this new
communications medium. These are the peo-
ple who act as citizens of the Net.
Although in global terms Michael Hauben may
be relatively unknown, the words and ideas he
introduced, embodied in the term Netizen, is some-
thing which in retrospect seems as a matter of course
and a natural part of our language and civic discourse
(other such concepts include the Cold War, for
instance, which was coined by a French journalist).
The ability to develop such a concept and introduce it
into daily use, which then remains as an integral part
of our intellectual heritage, betrays an insight akin to
that of what we generally consider to be a great
thinker.
Despite not being a pop-icon, Michael Hauben’s
influence extended far and wide. He was invited to
Japan to speak about his ideas, and he appeared in
documentaries about the Internet on TV Tokyo. He
also was frequently consulted to comment on the
growing importance of the Internet as a new demo-
cratic communications medium. Not surprisingly, his
co-authored book “Netizens: On the History and
Impact of Usenet and the Internet” is published not
only in an English but in Japanese as well.
Page 10
Some of Michael’s
Accomplishments*
Research and Publications
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet published May 1997 by IEEE Computer
Society Press.
“Culture and Communication,” chapter in The Ethical
Global Information Society: Culture and Democracy
Revisited, edited Jacques Berleur and Diane White-
house published 1997 by Chapman & Hall.
“Birth of Netizens,” chapter in The Age of Netizens,
Shumpei Kumon, published 1996 by NTT Press.
“Netizens” in The Thinker Vol 2, No. 5 February 2,
1996, p. 1. Stanford University.
“OnLine Public Discussion and the Future of Democ-
racy,” in Proceedings Telecommunities 95: Equity on
the Internet, Victoria, B.C.
“Interview with Henry Spencer: On Usenet News and
C News,” chapter in Internet Secrets, edited by John
R. Levine and Carol Baroudi, published 1995 by IDG
Books.
“A New Democratic Medium: The Global Computer
Communications Network,” in AHKCUS Quarterly,
no. 14 July 1994, p. 26. Special Issue on Hong Kong
Media Facing 1997.
“Exploring New York City’s Online Community,” in
CMC Magazine, May 1995.
“Netizens,” in CMC Magazine, February 1997.
Presentations
California: Live Radio Interview 11/2/94 on KUCI,
88.9 FM - University of California Irvine for the
Cyberspace Report.
Michigan: Book Reading at Henry Ford Community
College in Dearborn, MI. on January 10, 1994.
New York: “Researching the Net: A talk on The
Evolution of Usenet News and The Significance of
the Global Computer Network.” Given to Columbia
University’s student ACM Chapter on 4/24/94.
California: Interview on University of California, San
Diego Radio Station November ‘94.
New York: “Researching the Net” talk given at the
Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public
Library on May 1, 1995
Japan: Appeared in a Japanese Documentary about
the Internet. 7/2/95 on NHK, TV Tokyo
Japan: Guest Speaker at Hypernetwork ‘95 Beppu
Bay Conference. 11/24/95 in Beppu, Oita Prefecture,
Japan. Topic “Netizens and Community Networks”
Canada: Presented “The Effect of the Net on the
Professional News Media” at INET’96 in Montreal,
Canada on June 27, 1996.
Greece: Presented “Culture and Communication:
Usenet and Community Networks” at IFIP WG
9.2/9.5 in Corfu, Greece on May 8, 1997.
*From the Resume of Michael Hauben
In Memoriam a Netizen
Michael Hauben
By Dr. A. R. Herman*
Once upon a time I had been searching on the
web for documents about the life and work of the
famous mathematician (maybe he is better known as
the co-inventor of the computer language BASIC and
of DTSS), of the late Professor John G. Kemeny. One
of the robots sent me to Michael Hauben and so it
began .... I became acquainted with the family
Hauben. By the web I could read the early, digital
version of the book “Netizens,” written by Michael
and Ronda Hauben.
The time went on and I met personally Ronda
and Jay Hauben in Budapest, Hungary. It was a
pleasure to me. I received a significant gift – the
hardbound edition of “Netizens” (IEEE Computer
Page 11
Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1997). I read it over
thoroughly because from one side it is well written
(readable) and from the other it is a fascinating
account of the past, present and the future of the
Internet, including a chronicle and impact of the
Usenet, moreover about the life and usage of the
“net.” As an engineer, who worked that time in a
library I was interested to know more about the
Internet.
Nathan and Ida Reingold, wrote in their book
Science in America, A Documentary History, 1900 -
1939 (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago -
London, 1981) that:
A traditional way of regarding science and
its history is to envisage a core consisting of
concepts, data, and techniques, an account of
which constitutes the history of science.
Human beings and their institutions are
outside the core; if they are sometimes
included within the definition of ‘core,’ if the
tendency is to define them in terms of
importance to the content of science. In fact,
to this day both the ideology of science and
some histories have a tendency, explicitly or
implicitly, to identify the scientist and the
scientific organization with the body of
knowledge. Ohm becomes Ohm’s Law;
Darwin is natural selection the early Royal
Society is Newtonian science. The core
exists independently of humans; humans
exist for the core.
Michael and Ronda Hauben wrote their book
successfully in the best tradition of science history and
at the same time they made it clear that the develop-
ment of the network from the beginning was the result
of the scientific work of flesh and blood, i.e. real
people.
The title of their book used the new word, new
term, the “netizen,” i.e. citizen of the net, which was
coined by Michael. His word became very popular in
a short time, and if you search the web for it, you will
have hundreds of URL addresses to see, among them
Estonian or Japanese addresses. (There is a Japanese
translation of this book initiating a social approach to
this new phenomenon.) There are various opinions
about the beginning of the net. I use a citation from
Michael and Ronda’s book :
J. C. R. Licklider was one of these early net-
work pioneers. His vision of an Intergalactic
Computer Network helped to inspire these
developments.
The book stays somehow mainly on ARPANET and
the Usenet. I think that ARPANET and the so called
poor man’s ARPANET were of course very early
phases of the “Internet revolution,” but I think that at
MIT and Dartmouth the first time-sharing systems
were the beginning, not to mention the work of Baran
at Rand corporation.
Scientists and researchers and users who were
free of market forces have developed the current
global computer network. There is a long list of
names of people who contributed to establishing this
net, who may be named netizens. Michael Hauben
was the author of this new word, and with his works,
among others his main work, the book “Netizens,”
made a significant contribution to the exploring of the
technical and social roots and aspects of the Internet.
He deserves the right to be one of the netizens and be
on the short list.
One of the first thinkers about the role of this
network in the world was Michael Hauben. His early
passing away made a big gap mainly for the com-
munity of netizens (not only for his parents) and this
gap will be very difficult to fill.
There were theoretical speculations proceeding
the work on Netizens. Some ideas of Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin, the Jesuit philosopher, published nearly
half a century ago in “The Vision of the Past” (Harper
& Row, New York, 1966) were about the
“noosphere,” i.e. the man made sphere on the globe.
The Hungarian biologist, Vilmos Csányi published
his synthesizing work, “Evolution Systems and
Society: A General Theory of Life, Mind, and
Culture” (General Evolution Research Group/Duke
University Press, Durham, NC, 1989), which con-
cludes with the autogenesis of a global system based
on new technology.
Michael had the knowledge and foundation to
make the next step, to join these speculations with the
birth and development of the Internet. This work may
be continued partially by Ronda and Jay Hauben, but
I think the method used nine years ago by Michael,
i.e. lean upon the netizens community, will help them
to work on this topic and search for possible
coworker(s).
* * *
“Habent sua fata libelli” (the books have their
own fate) the original Latin expression meant (for
me) how the work can live through centuries and find
its reader, but in this case it has other meaning. The
Page 12
book was read over by me and left at the distant left
corner on my writing table. I thought that it may be
and will be a good beginning for a new period of my
life. (I prepared myself for the period of my
retirement.)
That time I was working at the OMIKK. It is an
abbreviation from the Hungarian name of the National
Technical Information Centre and Library in Bud-
apest. This library was serving the whole Hungarian
community, people and organizations, including small
and medium sized enterprises, both as a special and as
public library in the fields of science, technology and
economy. OMIKK was one of the biggest Hungarian
libraries, with a holding of one million and a half
library units (books, serials and other documents), and
traditionally it was in the forefront of progress.
OMIKK was the first public – and for a long time the
only – organization not only in Hungary, but in the
whole so called Eastern Block, or on the east side of
the Iron Curtain which had subscriptions to the
western science and technology databases twenty
years ago. We had the biggest collection of CD-ROM
databases (more than one hundred) and the most
subscriptions to electronic journals in Hungary (more
than six thousand). One element of the library crisis in
the whole world is that in the best cases, budgets are
flat while there is the more or less exponentially
growing number of publications, the inflation in prices
making an ever growing tension. So we had a money
shortage for acquisition.
At the same time it was clear to me, that Michael
and Ronda Hauben’s book Netizens, although it will
be a very useful book for our readers, we will not buy
it. I had an exemplar dedicated personally to me. I was
afraid that not any other Hungarian library will have
this book. I decided one year ago, grudgingly, to give
to the library. So it was that this groundbreaking book
became part of the OMIKK’s holding. OMIKK was a
state owned public budget organization, founded more
than a hundred years ago, in 1883. The Secretary of
State for Education decided to put an end of this
success story, against the will of many thousands of
our users, so he made it with the date June 30, 2001.
The holdings of the previous OMIKK were transferred
to Budapest Technical University.
“Habent sua fata libelli” so it is the fate of the
exemplar of Michael and Ronda Hauben’s book
Netizens, dedicated personally to me, in the last two
years.
Budapest, 25th November, 2001.
* Sadly, Dr. Akos Herman died on February 28, 2002.
Giving Back to the World
By Bill Steward
Like so many who learned from Michael’s work,
I only knew him on a virtual level, through the
Internet. However, I knew a great deal about the work
he had done, and therefore felt the warmth and
admiration for him that one would feel for a good
friend. His research and publications helped me
tremendously in understanding the context in which
the Internet sits, and finding his writings on J. C. R.
Licklider and the Usenet were like discovering a
wonderful window into the history of the creation of
the net. It is appropriate that he coined the term
Netizen, for he was one of its best practitioners,
giving back to the world by leveraging the power of
the net to provide help and information to untold
numbers of people across the world. He set a great
example we are well recommended to follow. I’m
sure he already has a mailing list going in heaven.
Thoughts Regarding
Michael’s
Work and Legacy
By Luis de Quesada
Perhaps Michael Hauben’s greatest ideal and
contribution was that he was people oriented. He
envisioned government just as our forefathers meant
it to be “a government by the people and for the
people” nothing less is acceptable and that a true
people’s government could be strengthened and im-
proved by public debate. Michael’s idea wasn’t far
fetched or utopian. Michael’s idea was exactly what
our forefathers intended our government to be. A
government not in the hands of the big corporations
and their lobbyists, but a truly people oriented democ-
racy. Michael saw computers and the internet as
Page 13
unprecedented means of communication and edu-
cation which need to be preserved for collective use
and not for the private use of a privileged class. The
computer and its information highway are and must be
for equally shared public use, so Michael created
Netizens, a collective for citizens equally sharing the
internet as a right not as a service. One needs only to
read the principles on which Netizens was founded,
the rights of Netizens; to understand Michael’s in-
tentions, ideals and gift for all of us and all of man-
kind.
The way I see it, Michael, like Cuba’s Jose Marti
chose to side with the poor, the workers and all the
little and disenfranchised people, as Marti once said
and wrote, “CON LOS POBRES DE LA TIERRA,
QUIERO YO MI SUERTE ECHAR,” which
translates, “WITH THE POOR PEOPLE OF THIS
EARTH, I WANT TO SHARE MY FATE.” And he
did, fighting for the rights of all the poor and the under
served to become computer literate, to enable them to
freely log in and navigate the Internet. Therefore it is
my opinion that in founding Netizens, with the help of
his loving parents Ronda and Jay, Michael founded
what I call “THE SPANISH REPUBLIC OF THE
INTERNET.” The Spanish Republic 1931-1939 was
founded on truly democratic principles and justice for
all, just like our own in 1776. It is therefore our duty
to defend Netizens and keep it alive, just like the loyal
citizens of Spain and their brothers and sisters from all
over the world came to Spain to defend it from
fascism and the never ending greed of those who
wanted to keep Spain and its people in eternal
servitude. Unfortunately “THE GOOD FIGHT” in
Spain was lost along with many other “good fights” in
recent decades. So we must therefore carry on the
torch and keep Michael’s idea, NETIZENS, alive to
ensure that complete privatization of the Internet
never happens, because it is morally wrong, because
in time, logging in would be a private commodity,
reserved for a privileged few. They say people truly
die when their ideas are no longer remembered and no
longer matter to anyone. Michael’s idea means so
much to the underprivileged and to all of us who
shared his vision of justice for all. We must keep up
the fight so his idea of a free and collective internet
will keep on existing as a right for everyone, for
mankind’s benefit!
Mike: Sketches
By Simon Butler
SimonHardy[email protected]
I first met Mike Hauben during freshman year at
Columbia. We were both on the same floor, Carman
Nine. He was a friendly fellow, always interested in
chatting even when I, a surlier young man, wasn’t. On
the street, while passing all the restaurants and shops
by the university, he’d reel off the names of various
sites if I were silent. He was just trying to make
conversation, of course. After a while, he stopped.
Newbie’s habit, I guess.
Mike introduced me to a great deal of new things
I never would’ve realized were there had he not taken
the initiative to help me check them out. Suddenly, I
was posting messages on the poetry newsgroup,
rec.arts.poems, and interacting with other fans on the
New York Yankees newsgroup, when the only way I
even dreamed about conversing in this manner with
people before was via some sort of hobbyist’s salon
or cultural group. Or at a baseball game, for that
matter.
He got me into Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, two
bands I absolutely despised before I met him. And in
turn, I introduced him to certain pieces of classical
music. We even went to the opera together, along
with our mutual friend Ed. And Mike who was
enchanted by the theater but was less exposed to the
great works of the cinema joined me as we watched
various classics, from Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood”
to Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes.” Not all of them
he liked. In some cases, we held quite different, and
often conflicting, opinions. But he was always willing
to experiment.
That’s what I think he wanted to do most, in
order to enjoy life, to experiment. Even his death
seems the result of an ill-fated decision to try the end
of existence when all else seemed to fail. I think in his
experimentation, he produced some beauties, some
truths; his book on the Internet; his immersion into
the world of music; his increased appreciation of the
cinematic medium; his friendship with people world-
wide, due to his online and offline inter-connectivity.
I think he trod quite deeply on the Earth and
broke the soil. His footprint is still there. The indent-
ation of his life. The perpetuity of a strange, unique
wisdom, and the injustice of itself.
Page 14
New Hebrew Dictionary
Subject: the term netizen
Hi, I was hoping you could help me define the term
“netizen.” I’m actually working on a Hebrew diction-
ary, and since the term is now used in our language as
well, we decided to include it in the new version of
our dictionary (hardcopy).
My question is: to my ear, the term implies a
sense of responsibility, belonging, sharing, cooper-
ation etc., meaning malevolent users, such as hackers
and virus spreaders, wouldn’t be considered netizens.
Am I correct to assume this?
The reason I’m asking is that some definitions I
found (on the Web, of course) say netizen is simply an
Internet user, or frequent user. This seems lacking to
me. Do you agree? TIA Best regards,
Dorit Attar <attarg[email protected]>
Linguist, Translator and Editor
A Tribute
By Claudia Hill
Although I never met Michael, his parents, Jay
and Ronda have asked me to write a few words about
how I view Usenet as part of a tribute to Michael,
forever a citizen of the Net, a Netizen.
My view of Usenet is analogous to an arch-
itectural structure. Usenet is made up of individuals
exchanging information electronically through news-
groups to form a virtual architectural structure of
information in much the same manner that collab-
orations between architects, builders, and construction
workers result in real structures perhaps made of
brick, concrete, mortar and wood. The foundations of
each Usenet newsgroup depend on the agreement
between participants who make decisions about the
group as its users. This seems to me like an arch-
itectural plan of a building which developers agree to
follow once drafted.
Along the way, architects’ plans may become
altered or improved and likewise, newsgroups may
change direction or be influenced by views of one sort
or another. Newsgroup participants are accountable
for the traffic on a Usenet newsgroup, much like
architects and resultant buildings they design. Build-
ings, once constructed, can be modified, expanded or
abandoned, and newsgroups too can undergo changes
in their virtual structures as more and more infor-
mation is sent over the networks between newsgroup
participants.
But, Usenet, a virtual architectural structure, has
enduring characteristics which real architecture does
not. While real buildings are subjected to the harsh
elements of time; from inclement weather conditions
acting on natural and artificial materials, man-made
acts of destruction, changes in the whim of arch-
itectural fashion to economic downturns, Usenet
seems to have immortality to it. Once a participant or
citizen of Usenet, the individual becomes a part of
this virtual architectural “net” structure. Usenet par-
ticipants, or “Netizens,” then are the sum total of the
views on a particular topic and in some sense are
immortalized within the virtual architectural structure.
Usenet as an architectural structure, albeit a virtual
one, is a credible analogy and one, that I hope you
will agree, seems boundless in its reach and limitless
in its potential.
Some writings of
Michael Hauben
[Editor’s Note: The following is the Preface to
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and
the Internet, IEEE Computer Science Press, May
1997]
Preface: What is a Netizen?
By Michael Hauben
The story of Netizens is an important one. In
conducting research four years ago online to
determine people’s uses for the global computer
communications network, I became aware that there
was a new social institution, an electronic commons,
developing. It was exciting to explore this new social
institution. Others online shared this excitement. I
discovered from those who wrote me that the people
I was writing about were citizens of the Net, or
Netizens.
I started using local BBSs in Michigan in 1985.
After seven years of participation on both local
hobbyist-run computer bulletin boards systems, and
Page 15
global Usenet, I began to research Usenet and the
Internet. I found these online discussions to be
mentally invigorating and welcoming of thoughtful
comments, questions and discussion. People were also
friendly and considerate of others and their questions.
This was a new environment for me. Little thoughtful
conversation was encouraged in my high school. Since
my daily life did not provide places and people to talk
with about real issues and real world topics, I
wondered why the online experience encouraged such
discussions and consideration of others. Where did
such a culture spring from, and how did it arise?
During my sophomore year of college in 1992, I was
curious to explore and better understand this new
online world.
As part of course work at Columbia University, I
explored these questions. One professor’s encourage-
ment helped me to use Usenet and the Internet as
places to conduct research. My research was real
participation in the online community by exploring
how and why these communications forums
functioned. I posed questions on Usenet, mailing lists
and freenets. Along with these questions, I would
attach some worthwhile preliminary research. People
respected my questions and found the preliminary
research helpful. The entire process was one of mutual
respect and sharing of research and ideas. A real
notion of ‘community’ and ‘participation’ takes place.
I found that on the Net people willingly help each
other and work together to define and address issues
important to them. These are often important issues
which the conventional media would never cover.
My initial research concerned the origins and
development of the global discussion forum Usenet.
For my second paper, I wanted to explore the larger
Net and what it was and its significance. This is when
my research uncovered the remaining details that
helped me to recognize the emergence of Netizens.
There are people online who actively contribute
towards the development of the Net. These people
understand the value of collective work and the
communal aspects of public communications. These
are the people who discuss and debate topics in a
constructive manner, who e-mail answers to people
and provide help to new-comers, who maintain FAQ
files and other public information repositories, who
maintain mailing lists, and so on. These are people
who discuss the nature and role of this new
communications medium. These are the people who
as citizens of the Net, I realized were Netizens.
However, these are not all people. Netizens are not
just anyone who comes online, and they are especially
not people who come online for individual gain or
profit. They are not people who come to the Net
thinking it is a service. Rather 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.
Lurkers are not Netizens, and vanity home pages are
not the work of Netizens. While lurking or trivial
home pages do not harm the Net, they do not
contribute either.
The term Netizen has spread widely since it was
first coined. The genesis comes from net culture
based on the original newsgroup naming conventions.
Network wide Usenet newsgroups included
net.general for general discussion, net.auto for
discussion of autos, net.bugs for discussion of unix
bug reports, and so on. People who used Usenet
would prefix terms related to the online world with
the word NET similar to the newsgroup terminology.
So there would be references to net.gods, net.cops or
net.citzens. My research demonstrated that there were
people active as members of the network, which the
term net citizen does not precisely represent. The
word citizen suggests a geographic or national
definition of social membership. The word Netizen
reflects the new non-geographically based social
membership. So I contracted the phrase net.citizen to
Netizen.
Two general uses of the term Netizen have
developed. The first is a broad usage to refer to any-
Page 16
one who uses the Net, for whatever purpose. Thus, the
term netizen has been prefixed in some uses with the
adjectives good or bad. The second usage is closer to
my understanding. This definition is used to describe
people who care about Usenet and the bigger Net and
work towards building the cooperative and collective
nature which benefits the larger world. These are
people who work towards developing the Net. In this
second case, Netizen represents positive activity, and
no adjective need be used. Both uses have spread from
the online community, appearing in newspapers,
magazines, television, books and other offline media.
As more and more people join the online community
and contribute toward the nurturing of the Net and
towards the development of a great shared social
wealth, the ideas and values of Netizenship spread.
But with the increasing commercialization and
privatization of the Net, Netizenship is being
challenged. During such a period it is valuable to look
back at the pioneering vision and actions that have
helped make the Net possible and examine what
lessons they provide. That is what we have tried to do
in these chapters.
Michael Hauben, New York and Beppu. November 1995
What the Net Means to Me
By Michael Hauben
The Net means personal power in a world of little
or no personal power. (other than those on the top -
who are called powerful because of money, but not
because of thoughts or ideas.) The essence of the Net
is Communication, of personal communication be-
tween individual people, and between individuals and
those who in society who care (and do not care) to
listen. The closest parallels I can think of are several
fold:
- Samizdat Literature in Eastern Europe.
- People’s Presses - The Searchlight, Appeal to
Reason, Penny Press, etc.
- Citizen’s Band Radio
- Amateur or Ham radio.
However the Net seems to have grown farther and
be more accessible than the above. The audience is
larger, and continues to grow. Plus communication via
the Net allows easier control over the information - as
it is digitized and can be stored, replied to, and easily
adapted to another format.
The Net is the vehicle for distribution of people’s
ideas, thoughts and yearnings. What commercial
service deals with the presentation of ideas? I do not
need a computer to order flowers from FDT or clothes
from the Gap. I need the Net to be able to voice my
thoughts, artistic impressions, and opinions to the rest
of the world. The world will then be a judge as to if
they are worthy by either responding or ignoring my
contribution.
Throughout history (at least in the U.S.A.), there
has been a phenomenon of the street corner Soapbox.
People would “stand up” and make a presentation of
some beliefs or thoughts they have. There are very
few soapboxes in our society today. The 70s and 80s
wiped out public expression to the public via the
financial crisis and growing sentiment of put your
money where your mouth is. In the late 80s and early
90s, the Net has emerged as a forum for public
expression and discussion. The Net is partially a
development from those who were involved with the
Civil Rights, Anti-War struggles and Free Speech
movements in the 60s. The personal computer is also
a development by some of these same people.
Somehow the social advances rises from the fact
that people are communicating with other people to
help them undermine the upper hand other institutions
have. An example is people in California keeping tabs
on gas station prices around the state using Netnews.
More examples of people reviewing music – rather
than telling others, you should really go buy the latest
issue of magazine X (rolling stones, etc) as it has a
great review. This is what I mean by people power –
people individually communicating to present their
take on something rather than saying go get
commercial entities’ X view from place Y. This is
people contributing to other people to make a
difference in people’s lives. In addition, people have
debated commercial companies’ opposition to the
selling of used CDs. This conversation is done in a
grassroots way – people are questioning the music
industry’s profit making grasp on the music out there.
The industry definitely puts profit ahead of artistic
merit, and people are not interested in the industry’s
profit making motive, but rather great music.
Representation of two things:
- Way of expressing one’s voice - when that
voice generally does not have a place in the
Page 17
normal political order.
- Way of Organizing and questioning other
peoples experiences so as to have a better
grip on a question or problem. Someone
regaining control of one’s life from society.
These are all reasons why I feel so passionately
about 1) keeping the Net open to everyone, and having
such connections being available publicly, and 2)
Keeping the Net un-commercialized and un-pri-
vatized. Commercialism will lead to growing
emphasis on serving oriented rather than sharing
oriented uses of the Net. Like I said before, it is NOT
important for me to be able to custom order my next
outfit from the Gap or any other clothing store.
Companies should develop their own networks if they
wish to provide another avenue to sell their products.
In addition, commercial companies will not have it in
their interest to allow people to use the Net to realize
their political self. Again let me reemphasize, when I
say politics, I mean power over one’s lives, and
surroundings. And this type of politics I would call
democracy.
Proposed Declaration of the
Rights of Netizens*
We Netizens have begun to put together a
Declaration of the Rights of Netizens and are
requesting from other Netizens contributions, ideas,
and suggestions of what rights should be included.
Following are some beginning ideas.
The Declaration of the Rights of Netizens:
In recognition that the net represents a revolution
in human communications that was built by a co-
operative non-commercial process, the following
Declaration of the Rights of the Netizen is presented
for Netizen comment.
As Netizens are those who take responsibility and
care for the Net, the following are proposed to be their
rights:
o Universal access at no or low cost
o Freedom of Electronic Expression to promote
the exchange of knowledge without fear of
reprisal
o Uncensored Expression
o Access to Broad Distribution
o Universal and Equal access to knowledge and
information
o Consideration of one’s ideas on their merits
o No limitation of access to read, to post and to
otherwise contribute
o Equal quality of connection
o Equal time of connection
o No Official Spokesperson
o Uphold the public grassroots purpose and
participation
o Volunteer Contribution - no personal profit from
the contribution freely given by others
o Protection of the public purpose from those who
would use it for their private and money making
purposes
The Net is not a Service, It is a Right. It is only
valuable when it is collective and universal. Volunteer
effort protects the intellectual and technological
common-wealth that is being created. DO NOT
UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE NET
and NETIZENS.
Inspiration from: RFC 3 (1969), Thomas Paine,
Declaration of Independence (1776), Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), NSF
Acceptable Use Policy, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and
the current cry for democracy worldwide.
* Written by Michael Hauben as a New Years
message, January 1993.
Participatory Democracy
From the 1960s and
SDS into the Future Online*
By Michael Hauben
The 1960s was a time of people around the world
struggling for more of a say in the decisions of their
society. The emergence of the personal computer in
the late 70s and early 80s and the longer gestation of
the new forms of people-controlled communication
facilitated by the Internet and Usenet in the late 80s
and today are the direct decedents of 1960s.
The era of the 1960s was a special time in
America. Masses of people realized their own po-
tential to affect how the world around them worked.
People rose up to protest the ways of society that were
out of their control, whether to fight against racial
Page 18
segregation, or to gain more power for students in the
university setting. The Port Huron Statement (Miller,
pages 329-374) created by the Students for a
Democratic Society (SDS) was a document which
helped set the mood for the decade.
By the 1970s, some of the people who were
directly involved in student protests continued their
efforts to bring power to the people by developing and
spreading computer power in a form accessible and
affordable to individuals. The personal computer
movement of the 1970s created the personal computer.
By the mid 1980s they forced the corporations to
produce computers which everyone could afford. The
new communications media of the Internet grew out
of the ARPANET research that started in 1969 and
Usenet which was born in 1979. These commun-
ications advances coupled with the availability of
computers transforms the spirit of the 1960s into an
achievable goal for our times.
Sds and the Need for Participatory
Democracy
The early members of SDS found a real problem
in American Society. They felt that the United States
was a democracy that never existed, or rather which
was transformed into a representative system after the
constitutional convention. The United States society is
called a democracy, but had ceased being democratic
after the early beginnings of American society. SDS
felt it is crucial for people to have a part in how their
society is governed. SDS leaders had an understanding
of democratic forms that did not function demo-
cratically in the 1960s nor do they today. This is a real
problem that the leaders and members of SDS
intuitively understood and worked to change.
An important part of the SDS program included
the understanding of the need for a medium to make
it possible for a community of active citizens to
discuss and debate the issues affecting their lives.
While not available in the 1960s, such a medium
exists today in the 1990s. The seed for the revival of
the 1960s SDS vision of how to bring about a more
democratic society now exist in the personal computer
and the Net. This seed will be an important element in
the battle for winning control for people as we
approach the new millennium.
The Port Huron Statement and Deep
Problems with American Democracy
The Port Huron Statement was the foundation on
which to build a movement for participatory
democracy in the 1960s. In June 1962, a SDS national
convention was held in a UAW camp located in the
backwoods of Port Huron, Michigan. Tom Hayden,
who was then SDS Field Secretary, drafted The
original text of The Port Huron Statement. The
Statement sets out the theory of SDS’s criticism of
American society. The Port Huron convention was
itself a concrete living example of the practice of
participatory democracy.
The Port Huron Statement was originally thought
of as a manifesto, but SDS members moved instead to
call it a “statement.” An introductory note describing
how it was to be a document that should develop and
change with experience prefixed it:
This document represents the results of
several months of writing and discussion
among the membership, a draft paper, and
revision by the Students for a Democratic
Society national convention meeting in Port
Huron, Michigan, June 11-15, 1962. It is
presented as a document with which SDS
officially identifies, but also as a living
document open to change with our times and
experiences. It is a beginning: in our own
debate and education, in our dialogue with
society. (The Port Huron Statement in
Miller, p. 329)
This note is important in that it signifies that the
SDS document was not defining the definite solution
to the problems of society, but was making sug-
gestions that would be open to experiences towards a
better understanding. This openness is an important
precursor to practicing participatory democracy by
asking for the opinions of everyone and treating these
various opinions equally.
The first serious problem inherent in American
society identified by The Port Huron Statement is the
myth of a functioning democracy:
For Americans concerned with the develop-
ment of democratic societies, the anti-
colonial movements and revolutions in the
emerging nations pose serious problems. We
need to face the problems with humanity;
after 180 years of constitutional government
we are still striving for democracy in our
own society. (The Port Huron Statement in
Page 19
Miller, p. 361)
This lack of democracy in American society
contributes to the political disillusionment of the
population. Tom Hayden and SDS were deeply
influenced by the writings of C. Wright Mills, a
philosopher who was a Professor at Columbia
University until his death early in 1962. Mills’ thesis
was that the “the idea of the community of publics”
which make up a democracy had disappeared as
people increasingly got further away from politics.
Mills felt that the disengagement of people from the
State had resulted in control being given to a few who
in the 1960s were no longer valid representatives of
the American people. In his book about SDS,
Democracy is in the Streets, James Miller wrote:
Politics became a spectator sport. The sup-
port of voters was marshaled through ad-
vertising campaigns, not direct participation
in reasoned debate. A citizen’s chief sources
of political information, the mass media,
typically assaulted him with a barrage of
distracting commercial come-ons, feeble
entertainments and hand-me-down glosses
on complicated issues. (Miller, p. 85)
Such fundamental problems with democracy
continue today in the middle of the 1990s. In The Port
Huron Statement, SDS was successful in identifying
and understanding the problems, which still plague us
today. This is a necessary first step to working
towards a solution. The students involved with SDS
understood people were tired of the problems and
wanted to make changes in society. The Port Huron
Statement was written to address these concerns:
...do they not as well produce a yearning to
believe there is an alternative to the present,
that something can be done to change
circumstances in the school, the workplaces,
the bureaucracies, the government? It is to
this latter yearning, at once the spark and
engine of change, that we direct our present
appeal. The search for a truly democratic
alternatives to the present, and a commitment
to social experimentation with them, is a
worthy and fulfilling human enterprise, one
which moves us, and we hope, others today.
(Miller, p. 331)
Describing how the separation of people from
power is the means used to keep people uninterested
and apathetic, The Port Huron Statement explains:
The apathy is, first, subjective – the felt
powerlessness of ordinary people, the
resignation before the enormity of events.
But subjective apathy is encouraged by the
objective American situation – the actual
structural separation of people from power,
from relevant knowledge, from pinnacles of
decision-making. Just as the university
influences the student way of life, so do
major social institutions create the circum-
stances which the isolated citizen will try
hopelessly to understand the world and
himself. (“The Society Beyond” in The Port
Huron Statement, Miller, p. 336)
The Statement analyzes the personal discon-
nection to society and its effect:
The very isolation of the individual – from
power and community and ability to aspire
– means the rise of democracy without
publics. With the great mass of people
structurally remote and psychologically
hesitant with respect to democratic insti-
tutions, those institutions themselves atten-
uate and become, in the fashion of the
vicious cycle, progressively less accessible
to those few who aspire to serious partic-
ipation in social affairs. The vital democratic
connection between community and
leadership, between the mass and the several
elites, has been so wrenched and perverted
that disastrous policies go unchallenged time
and again. (Miller, p. 336)
The Statement describes how it is typical for
people to get frustrated and quit going along with the
electrical system as something that works. The
problem has continued, as we now have all time lows
in voter turn-outs for national and local elections. In
a section titled “Politics Without Publics,” the
Statement explains:
The American voter is buffeted from all
directions by pseudo-problems, by the
structurally initiated sense that nothing polit-
ical is subject to human mastery. Worried by
his mundane problems which never get
solved, but constrained by the common
belief that politics is an agonizingly slow
accommodation of views, he quits all pre-
tense of bothering. (The Port Huron
Statement, Miller, p. 337)
Students in SDS did not let these real problems
discourage their efforts to work for a better future.
Page 20
They wanted to be part of the forces to defeat the
problems. The Port Huron Statement contains an
understanding that people are inherently good and can
deal with the problems that were described. This
understanding is conveyed in the “Values” section of
the Statement:
Men have unrealized potential for self-culti-
vation, self-direction, self-understanding, and
creativity. It is this potential that we regard
as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the
human potential for violence, unreason, and
submission to authority. The goal of man and
society should be human independence: a
concern not with the image of popularity but
with finding a meaning in life that is person-
ally authentic; a quality of mind not com-
pulsively driven by a sense of powerlessness,
nor one which unthinkingly adopts status
values, nor one which represses all threats to
its habits, but one which easily unites the
fragmented parts of personal history, one
which openly faces problems which are
troubling and unresolved; one with an
intuitive awareness of possibilities, an active
sense of curiosity, an ability and willingness
to learn. (The Port Huron Statement, Miller,
p. 332)
Participatory Democracy
Those participating in the Port Huron convention
came away with a sense of the importance of par-
ticipatory democracy. This sense was in the air in
several ways. The convention itself embodied par-
ticipatory democracy through the discussion and
debate over the text of the Statement as several people
later explained. The Port Huron Statement called for
the implementation of participatory democracy as a
way to bring people back into decisions about the
country in general, and their individual lives, in
particular. One of Tom Hayden’s professors at
University of Michigan, Arnold Kauman, came to
speak about his thoughts and use of phrase
‘participatory democracy.’
Miller writes that in a 1960 essay, “Participatory
Democracy and Human Nature,” Kauman had de-
scribed a society in which every member had a “direct
responsibility for decisions.” The “main justifying
function” of participatory democracy, quotes Miller,
“is and always has been, not the extent to which it
protects or stabilizes a community, but the con-
tribution it can make to the development of human
powers of thought, feeling and action. In this respect,
it differs, and differs quite fundamentally, from a
representative system incorporating all sorts of
institutional features designed to safeguard human
rights and ensure social order.” (Miller, p. 94)
Kauman explains:
Participation means both personal initiative
– that men feel obliged to help resolve social
problems – and social opportunity – that
society feels obliged to maximize the
possibility for personal initiative to find
creative outlets. (Miller, p. 95)
A participant at the Port Huron Conference,
Richard Flacks remembers Arnold Kauman speaking
at the convention, “At one point, he declared that our
job as citizens was not to role-play the President. Our
job was to put forth our own perspective. That was
the real meaning of democracy – press for your own
perspective as you see it, not trying to be a statesman
understanding the big picture.” (Miller, p. 111)
After identifying participatory democracy as the
means of how to wrest control back from corporate
and government bureaucracies, the next step was to
identify the means to having participatory democracy.
In the “Values” section of The Port Huron Statement,
the means proposed is a new media that would make
this possible:
As a social system we seek the establish-
ment of a democracy of individual partici-
pation governed by two central aims: that
the individual share in those social decisions
determining the quality and direction of his
life; the society be organized to encourage
independence in men and provide the media
for their common participation. (The Port
Huron Statement, Miller, p. 333)
Others in SDS further detailed their under-
standings of participatory democracy to mean people
becoming active and committed to playing more of a
public role. Miller documents Al Haber’s idea of
democracy as “a model, another way of organizing
society.” The emphasis was on a charge to action. It
was how to be out there doing. “Rather than an
ideology or a theory.” (Miller, pp. 143-144)
Tom Hayden, Miller writes, understood par-
ticipatory democracy to mean:
number one, action; we believed in action.
We had behind us the so-called decade of
apathy; we were emerging from apathy.
Page 21
What’s the opposite of apathy? Active
participation. Citizenship. Making history.
Secondly, we were very directly influenced
by the civil rights movement in its student
phase, which believed that by personally
committing yourself and taking risks, you
could enter history and try to change it after
a hundred years of segregation. And so it was
this element of participation in democracy
that was important. Voting was not enough.
Having a democracy in which you have an
apathetic citizenship, spoon-fed information
by a monolithic media, periodically voting,
was very weak, a declining form of democ-
racy. And we believed, as an end in itself, to
make the human being whole by becoming
an actor in history instead of just a passive
object. Not only as an end in itself, but as a
means to change, the idea of participatory
democracy was our central focus. (Miller, p.
144)
Another member of SDS, Sharon Jeffrey under-
stood “Participatory” to mean “involved in decisions.”
She continued, “And I definitely wanted to be
involved in decisions that were going to affect me!
How could I let anyone make a decision about me that
I wasn’t involved in?” (Miller, p. 144)
It is important to see the value of participatory
democracy as a common understanding among both
the leaders and members of SDS. While The Port
Huron Statement contained other criticisms and
thoughts, its major contribution was to highlight the
need to more actively involve the citizens of the
United States in the daily political process to correct
some of the wrongs which passivity had allowed to
build. Richard Flacks summarizes this in his article,
“On the Uses of Participatory Democracy”:
The most frequently heard phrase for de-
fining participatory democracy is that ‘men
must share in the decisions which affect their
lives.’ in other words, participator democrats
take seriously a vision of man as citizen: and
by taking seriously such a vision, they seek
to extend the conception of citizenship
beyond the conventional political sphere to
all institutions. Other ways of stating the core
values are to assert the following: each man
has responsibility for the action of the
institutions in which he is imbedded....
(Flacks, pp. 397-398)
The Need for Community for
Participatory Democracy
The leaders of SDS strived to create forms of
participatory democracy within its structure and
organization as a prototype and as leadership for the
student protest movement and society in general. Al
Haber, the University of Michigan graduate student
who was the first SDS national officer, describes the
need for a communication system to provide the
foundation for the movement:
The challenge ahead is to appraise and
evolve radical alternatives to the inadequate
society of today, and to develop an institut-
ionalized communication system that will
give perspective to our immediate actions.
We will then have the groundwork for a
radical student movement in America. (Sale,
p. 25)
He understood the general society would be the
last place to approach. There was a need to start
smaller among the element of society that was
becoming more active in the 1960s, the students.
Haber outlined his idea of where to start:
We do not now have such a public [inter-
action in a functioning community] in
America. Perhaps, among the students, we
are beginning to approach it on the left. It is
now the major task before liberals, radicals,
socialists and democrats. It is a task in which
the SDS should play a major role. (Miller,
p.69)
The Port Huron Statement defines ‘community’
to mean:
Human relations should involve fraternity
and honesty. Human interdependence is a
contemporary fact;.... Personal links be-
tween man and man are needed. (SDS, p.
332)
Prior to his full time involvement with SDS,
Hayden wrote an article for the Michigan Daily
describing how democratic decision-making is a
necessary first step towards creating community.
Hayden’s focus was on the University when he wrote,
“If decisions are the sole work of an isolated few
rather than of a participating many, alienation from
the University complex will emerge, because the
University will be just that: a complex, not a
community.” This sentiment persisted in Hayden’s
and others thoughts about community and democracy
for the whole country. (Miller, p. 54)
Page 22
This feeling about community is represented in
The Port Huron Statement’s conclusion. The State-
ment calls for the communal sharing of problems to
see that they are public and not private problems. Only
by communicating and sharing these problems
through a community will there be a chance to solve
them together. SDS called for the new left to “trans-
form modern complexity into issues that can be under-
stood and felt close-up by every human being.” The
statement continues, “It must give form to the feelings
of helplessness and indifference, so people may see
the political, social and economic sources of their
private troubles and organize to change society...”
(The Port Huron Statement, p. 374 of Miller)
The theory of participatory democracy was
engaging. However, the actual practice of giving
everyone a say within the SDS structures made the
value of participatory democracy clear. The Port
Huron Convention was a real life example of how the
principles were refreshing and capable of bringing
American citizens back into political process. The
community created among SDS members brought this
new spirit to light. C. Wright Mills writings spoke
about “the scattered little circles of face-to-face
citizens discussing their public business.” Al Haber’s
hope for this to happen among students was demon-
strated at Port Huron. SDS members saw this as proof
of Mills’s hope for democracy. This was to be the first
example of many among SDS gatherings and
meetings. Richard Flacks highlighted what made Port
Huron special. He found a “mutual discovery of like
minds.” Flacks continued, “You felt isolated before,
because you had these political interests and values
and suddenly you were discovering not only like
minds, but the possibility of actually creating some-
thing together.” It was also exciting because, “it was
our thing: we were there at the beginning.” (Miller, p.
118)
The Means for Change
SDS succeeded in doing several things. First, they
clearly identified the crucial problem in American
democracy. Next, they came up with an understanding
of what theory would make a difference. All that
remained was to find the means to make this change
manifest. They discovered how to create changes in
their own lives and these changes affected the world
around them. However, something more was needed
to bring change to all of American society.
Al Haber understood this something more would
be an open communication system or media which
people could use to communicate. He understood that,
“the challenge ahead is to appraise and evolve radical
alternatives to the inadequate society of today, and to
develop an institutionalized communication system
that will give perspective to our immediate actions.”
(Sale, p. 25) This system would lay the “the
groundwork for a radical student movement in
America.” (Sale, p. 25) Haber and Hayden understood
SDS to be this, “a national communications network”
(Miller, p. 72)
While many people made their voices heard and
produced a real effect on the world in the 1960s,
lasting structural changes were not established. The
real problems outlined earlier continued in the 1970s
and afterwards. A national, or even international,
public communications network needed to be built to
keep the public’s voice out in the open.
Members of SDS partially understood this, and
put forth the following two points in The Port Huron
Statement section on “Toward American
Democracy”:
Mechanisms of voluntary association must
be created through which political infor-
mation can be imparted and political par-
ticipation encouraged.
The allocation of resources must be based on
social needs. A truly ‘public sector’ must be
established, and its nature debated and
planned. (PHS, Miller, p. 362)
International Public Communications
Network – or the Net
This network and the means to access it began
developing towards the end of the 1960s. Two mile-
stones in the genesis were 1969 when the first
ARPANET node was installed and in 1979 when
Usenet started. Both are pioneering experiments in
using computers to facilitate human communication
in a fundamentally different way than already existing
public communications networks like the telephone or
television networks. The ARPANET, which was a
single network predecessor of today’s multi-network
Internet, and Usenet, which continues to grow and
expand around the world, gave rise to the Net, or the
worldwide global computer communication networks.
Another important step toward the development of an
international communication network was the
personal computer movement, which took place in the
Page 23
middle to late 1970s. This movement created the
personal computer, which makes it affordable for an
individual to purchase the means to connect to this
public network.
However, the network cannot simply be created.
SDS understood that “democracy and freedom do not
magically occur, but have roots in historical exper-
ience; they cannot always be demanded for any
society at any time, but must be nurtured and facilita-
ted.” (The Port Huron Statement, in Miller, p. 361)
Participants on the ARPANET, Internet, and
Usenet inherently understood this, and built a social
and knowledge network from the ground up. As
Usenet was created to help students who did not have
access to the ARPANET, or a chance to communicate
in a similar way, they came to it in full force. The
online user became part of a global culture and con-
siders him or herself to be a global citizen. This global
citizen is a net citizen, or a Netizen. The world, which
has developed, is based on communal effort to make
a cooperative community. Those who have become
Netizens have gained more control of their lives and
the world around them. However, access to this world
needs to spread in order to have the largest possible
effect for the most number of people. In addition, as
some efforts to spread the Net become more com-
mercial, some of the values important to the Net are
being challenged. (Hauben, “Culture and Com-
munity”)
A recent speech I was invited to present at a
conference on “the Netizen Revolution and the
Regional Information Infrastructure” in Beppu, Japan
helps to bring the world of the Netizen into per-
spective with the ideas of participatory democracy,
Netizens are not just anyone who comes
on-line, and they are especially not people
who come on-line for isolated gain or profit.
They are not people who come to the Net
thinking it is a service. Rather they are
people who understand it takes effort and
action on each and everyone’s part to make
the Net a regenerative and vibrant com-
munity 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. (Hauben, Hypernetwork ‘95
speech)
The Net is a technological and social develop-
ment that is in the spirit of the theory clearly defined
by the Students for a Democratic Society. This
understanding could help in the fight to keep the Net
an uncommercialized public commons (Felsenstein).
This many to many medium provides the tools
necessary to bring the open commons needed to make
participatory democracy a reality. It is important now
to spread access to this medium to all who understand
they could benefit.
The Net brings power to people’s lives because
it is a public forum. The airing of real problems and
concerns in the open brings help towards the solution
and makes those responsible accountable to the
general public. The Net is the public distribution of
people’s muckraking and whistle blowing. It is also
just a damn good way for people to come together to
communicate about common interests and to come
into contact with people with similar and differing
ideas.
The lack of control over the events surrounding
an individual’s life was a common concern of pro-
testors in the 1960s. The Port Huron Statement gave
as a reason for the reforms SDS was calling for that
“Americans are in withdrawal from public life, from
any collective efforts at directing their own affairs.”
(The Port Huron Statement, Miller, p. 335)
Hayden echoed C. Wright Mills when he wrote,
“What experience we have is our own, not vicarious
or inherited.” Hayden continued, “We keep believing
that people need to control, or try to control, their
work and their life. Otherwise, they are without
intensity, without the subjective creative conscious-
ness of themselves, which is the root of free and
secure feeling. It may be too much to believe, we
don’t know.” (Miller, p. 262)
The desire to bring more control into people’s
daily life was a common goal of student protest in the
1960s. Mario Savio, active in the Berkeley Free
Speech movement, “believed that the students, who
paid the university to educate them, should have the
power to influence decisions concerning their uni-
versity lives.” (Haskins and Benson, p. 55) This
desire was also a common motivator of the personal
computer movement.
The Personal Computer Movement
The personal computer movement immediately
picked up after the protest movements of the 1960s
died down. Hobbyist computer enthusiasts wanted to
provide access to computing power to the people.
People across the United States picked up circuit
boards and worked on making a personal mini-com-
Page 24
puter or mainframe which previously only large corp-
orations and educational institutions could afford.
Magazines, such as Creative Computing, Byte and Dr.
Dobbs’ Journal, and clubs, such as the Homebrew
Club, formed cooperative communities of people
working towards solving the technical problems of
building a personal and inexpensive computer.
Several pioneers of the personal computer move-
ment contributed to the tenth anniversary issue of
Creative Computing Magazine. Some of their impres-
sions follow:
The people involved were people with
vision, people who stubbornly clung to the
idea that the computers could offer individ-
uals advantages previously available only to
large corporations. ... (Leyland, p. 111)
Computer power was meant for the people.
In the early 70s computer cults were being
formed across the country. Sol Libes on the
East Coast and Gordon French in the West
were organizing computer enthusiasts into
clubs.... (Terrell, p. 100)
We didn’t have many things you take for
granted today, but we did have a feeling of
excitement and adventure. A feeling that we
were the pioneers in a new era in which
small computers would free everyone from
much of the drudgery of everyday life. A
feeling that we were secretly taking control
of information and power jealously guarded
by the Fortune 500 owners of multi-million
dollar IBM mainframes. A feeling that the
world would never be the same once “hobby
computers” really caught on. (Marsh, p. 110)
There was a strong feeling [at the Homebrew
Club] that we were subversives. We were
subverting the way the giant corporations
had run things. We were upsetting the
establishment, forcing our mores into the
industry. I was amazed that we could
continue to meet without people arriving
with bayonets to arrest the lot of us.
The Net and Conclusion
The development of the Internet and of Usenet is
an investment in a strong force towards making direct
democracy a reality. These new technologies present
the chance to overcome the obstacles preventing the
implementation of direct democracy. Online com-
munication forums also make possible the discussion
necessary to identify today’s fundamental questions.
One criticism is that it would be impossible to
assemble the body politic in person at a single time.
The Net allows for a meeting that takes place on each
person’s own time, rather than all at one time. Usenet
newsgroups are discussion forums where questions
are raised, and people can leave comments when
convenient, rather than at a particular time and at a
particular place. As a computer discussion forum,
individuals can connect from their own computers, or
from publicly accessible computers across the nation
to participate in a particular debate. The discussion
takes place in one concrete time and place, while the
discussants can be dispersed. Current Usenet news-
groups and mailing lists prove that citizens can both
do their daily jobs and participate in discussions that
interest them within their daily schedules.
Another criticism was that people would not be
able to communicate peacefully after assembling.
Online discussions do not have the same character-
istics as in-person meetings. As people connect to the
discussion forum when they wish, and when they
have time, they can be thoughtful in their responses to
the discussion, whereas in a traditional meeting,
participants have to think quickly to respond. In
addition, online discussions allow everyone to have a
say, whereas finite length meetings only allow a
certain number of people to have their say. Online
meetings allow everyone to contribute their thoughts
in a message, which is then accessible to whoever else
is reading and participating in the discussion.
These new communication technologies hold the
potential for the implementation of direct democracy
in a country as long as the necessary computer and
communications infrastructure are installed. Future
advancement towards a more responsible government
is possible with these new technologies. While the
future is discussed and planned for, it will also be
possible to use these technologies to assist in the
citizen participation in government. Netizens are
watching various government institutions on various
newsgroups and mailing lists throughout the global
computer communications network. People’s
thoughts about and criticisms of their respective
governments are being aired on the currently
uncensored networks.
These networks can revitalize the concept of a
Page 25
democratic “Town Meeting” via online commun-
ication and discussion. Discussions involve people
interacting with others. Voting involves the isolated
thoughts of an individual on an issue, and then his or
her acting on those thoughts in a private vote. In
society where people live together, it is important for
people to communicate with each other about their
situations to best understand the world from the
broadest possible viewpoint.
The individuals involved with SDS, the personal
computer movement and the pioneers involved with
the development of the Net understood they were a
part of history. This spirit helped them to push
forward in the hard struggle needed to bring the
movements to fruition. The invention of the personal
computer was one step that made it possible for people
to afford the means to connect to the Net. The Internet
has just begun to emerge as a tool available to the
public. It is important that the combination of the
personal computer and the Net be spread and made
widely available at low or no costs to people around
the world. It is important to understand the tradition,
which these developments have come from, in order
to truly understand their value to society and to make
them widely available. With the hope connected to
this new public communications medium, I encourage
people to take up the struggle, which continues in the
great American radical tradition.
Bibliography
Felsenstein, Lee. “The Commons of Information.” In Dr. Dobbs’
Journal. May 1993
www. si ls . umi ch . ed u / i mp a ct / s p ea k e r s/ f e ls e ns t e i n/
felsenstein-article.html
Flacks, Richard. “On the Uses of Particapatory Democracy.” In
Dissent. No 13. November 1966. Pp. 701-708. Reprinted in The
American Left. Edited by Loren Baritz. Pp. 397-405.
Freiberger, Paul and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley: The
Making of the Personal Computer. Osborne/McGraw-Hill.
Berkeley. 1984.
Haskins, James and Kathleen Benson. The 60s Reader. Viking
Kestrel. New York. 1988.
Hauben, Michael. “Culture and Communication: The interplay in
the new public commons - Usenet and Community.” 1995.
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/usenet-culture.txt
Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben. Netizens: On the History
.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/
Hauben, Michael. “Netizens and Community Networks.”
Presentation at Hyper network ‘95, Beppu Bay Conference.
November 24, 1995. Beppu Bay, Oita Prefecture, Japan.
Leyland, Diane Asher. “As We Were.” In Creative Computing.
Vol 10 no 11. November, 1984. Pp. 111-112.
Marsh, Robert. “1975: Ancient History.” In Creative Computing.
Vol 10 no 11. November, 1984. Pp. 108-110.
Miller, James. Democracy Is in the Streets. Simon and Schuster.
New York. 1987
Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. Vintage Books. New York, 1974.
SDS. The Port Huron Statement. As found in Miller. Pp.
329-374.
Terrell, Paul. “A Guided Tour of Personal Computing.” In
Creative Computing. Vol 10 no 11. November, 1984. Pp.
100-104.
* Written in December 1995
Netizens, Chapter 7
Behind the Net: The Untold
History of the ARPANET and
Computer Science
By Michael Hauben
The global Internet’s progenitor was the
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
(ARPANET), financed and encouraged by the U.S.
Department of Defense. This is important to re-
member, because the support and style of manage-
ment by ARPA of its contractors was crucial to the
success of the ARPANET. As the Internet develops
and the struggle over the role it plays unfolds, it will
be important to remember how the network developed
and the culture with which it was connected. The
culture of the Net as a facilitator of communication is
an important feature to understand.
The ARPANET Completion Report, published
jointly in 1978 by Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN)
of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and ARPA, concludes
by stating:
...it is somewhat fitting to end on the note
Page 26
that the ARPANET program has had a strong
and direct feedback into the support and
strength of computer science, from which the
network itself sprung.
1
In order to understand the wonder that the Internet
and various other components of the Net represent, we
need to understand why the ARPANET Completion
Report ends with the suggestion that the ARPANET is
fundamentally connected to and born of computer
science rather than of the military.
THE HISTORY OF ARPA
LEADING UP TO THE ARPANET
A climate of scientific research surrounded the
entire history of the ARPANET. ARPA was formed to
fund basic research, and thus was not oriented toward
military products. The formation of this agency was
part of the U.S. government’s response to the then
Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik in 1957.
2
One area
of ARPA-supported research concerned the question
of how to utilize the military’s investment in
computers to do Command and Control Research
(CCR). Dr. J. C. R. Licklider was chosen to head this
effort. Licklider came to ARPA from Bolt, Beranek
and Newman, (BBN) in Cambridge, MA in October
1962.
3
His educational background was a combination
of engineering studies and physiological psychology.
His multi-disciplinary experiences provided Licklider
with a prospective uncommon among engineers.
As a result of Licklider’s arrival, the Agency’s
contracts were shifted from non-academic contractors
toward “the best academic computer centers”.
4
The
then-current method of computing was batch pro-
cessing. Licklider saw that improvements could be
made in CCR only from work that would advance the
current state of computing technology. He particularly
wanted to move forward into the age of interactive
computing, and Defense Department contractors were
not moving in that direction. In an Interview, Licklider
described how at one of the contractors, System
Development Corporation (SDC), the computing
research being done “was based on batch processing,
and while I was interested in a new way of doing
things, they [SDC] were studying how to make
improvements in the ways things were done already.”
5
To reflect the changed direction Licklider was
bringing to ARPA-supported research, his division of
ARPA was renamed the Information Processing
Techniques Office (IPT or IPTO). The office
“developed into a far-reaching basic research program
in advanced technology.”
6
The Completion Report Draft states that
“Prophetically, Licklider nicknamed the group of
computer specialists he gathered the ‘Intergalactic
Network’.”
7
Before work on the ARPANET began,
the foundation had been established by the creation of
the Information Processing Techniques Office of
ARPA. Robert Taylor, Licklider’s successor at the
IPTO, reflects on how this foundation was based on
Licklider’s interest in interconnecting communities:
Lick was among the first to perceive the
spirit of community created among the users
of the first time-sharing systems... In
pointing out the community phenomena
created, in part, by the sharing of resources
in one timesharing system, Lick made it
easy to think about interconnecting the
communities, the interconnection of inter-
active, on-line communities of people ...”
8
The “spirit of community” was related to
Licklider’s interest in having computers help people
communicate with other people
9
Licklider’s vision of
an “intergalactic network” connecting people rep-
resented an important conceptional shift in computer
science. This vision guided the researchers who
created the ARPANET. After the ARPANET was
functioning, the computer scientists using it realized
that assisting human communication was a major
fundamental advance that the ARPANET made
possible.
As early as 1963, a commonly asked question of
the IPTO directors by the ARPA directors about IPTO
projects was “Why don’t we rely on the computer
industry to do that?,” or occasionally more strongly,
“We should not support that effort because ABC
(read, “computer industry”) will do it - if it’s worth
doing!”
10
This question leads to an important
distinction: ARPA research was different from what
the computer industry had in mind to do, or was likely
to undertake. Since Licklider’s creation of the IPTO,
the work supported by ARPA/IPTO continued his
explicit emphasis on communications. The Com-
pletion Report explains:
The ARPA/IPTO theme... is that the promise
offered by the computer... as a com-
munication medium between people, dwarfs
into relative insignificance the historical
beginnings of the computer as an arithmetic
engine.
11
Page 27
The Completion Report Draft goes on to differentiate
the research ARPA supported from the research done
by the computer industry:
The computer industry, in the main, still
thinks of the computer as an arithmetic
engine. Their heritage is reflected even in
current designs of “their communication
systems.” They have an economic and
psychological commitment to the arithmetic
engine model, and it can die only slowly...
12
The Completion Report Draft further analyzes this
problem by tracing it back to the nation’s universities:
...furthermore, it is a view that is still rein-
forced by most of the nation’s computer
science programs. Even universities, or at
least parts of them, are held in the grasp of
the arithmetic engine concept....
13
ARPA’s IPTO was responsible for the research
and development which led to the success of first the
ARPANET, and later the Internet. Without this
support and commitment, such a development might
never have happened. One of ARPA’s criterion for
supporting research was that the research had to offer
an order of magnitude of advance over the current
state of development. Such research is never im-
mediately profitable. In society, therefore, is the need
for organizations that do not pursue profit as their
goal, but rather work on furthering the state of the art.
Computer networking was developed and spread
widely in an environment outside of commercial and
profit considerations, an environment that supported
such research.
Others understood the communications promise
of computers. For example, in RFC 1336, David
Clark, senior research scientist at MIT’s Laboratory
for Computer Science, describes the impact of the
Internet in making possible new means of human-to-
human communication:
It is not proper to think of networks as
connecting computers. Rather, they connect
people using computers to mediate. The
great success of the internet is not technical,
but in human impact. Electronic mail may
not be a wonderful advance in Computer
Science, but it is a whole new way for people
to communicate. The continued growth of
the Internet is a technical challenge to all of
us, but we must never loose sight of where
we came from, the great change we have
worked on the larger computer community,
and the great potential we have for future
change.
14
Research predating the ARPANET had been
done by Paul Baran, Thomas Marill and others.
15
This
led Lawrence Roberts and other IPTO staff to
formally introduce the topic of networking computers
of differing types (that is, incompatible hardware and
software) together in order to make it possible for
ARPA’s Principle Investigators (PI) to share re-
sources. The ARPA Principle Investigators meeting
was held annually for university and other contractors
to summarize results of the previous year and discuss
future research. In the spring of 1967 it was held at
the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. Net-
working was one of the topics brought up at this
meeting, it was decided that there had to be agreement
on conventions for character and block transmission,
error checking and retransmission, and computer and
user identification. These specifications became the
contents of the inter-host communication’s
“protocol.” Frank Westervelt was chosen to write
about this protocol, and a communication group was
formed to study the questions.
16
In order to develop a network of varied com-
puters, two main problems had to be solved:
1. To construct a ‘subnetwork’ consisting of
telephone circuits and switching nodes
whose reliability, delay characteristics,
capacity, and cost would facilitate resource
sharing among computers on the network.
2. To understand, design, and implement the
protocols and procedures within the
operating systems of each connected com-
puter, in order to allow the use of the new
subnetwork by the computers in sharing re-
sources.
17
After one draft and additional work on this
communications position paper were completed, a
meeting was scheduled in early October 1967 by
ARPA at which the protocol paper and specifications
for the Interface Message Processor (IMP) were
discussed. A subnetwork of IMPs, dedicated mini-
computers connected to each other and to one or more
of the participant’s computers, was the method chosen
to connect the computers (hosts) to each other via
phone lines. This standardized the subnet to which the
hosts connected. Researchers at each site would have
Page 28
to write the software necessary to connect their local
host computer to the IMP at their site. ARPA picked
19 possible participants in what was now known as the
“ARPA Network.”
From the time of the 1967 PI meeting, various
computer scientists who were ARPA contractors were
busy thinking about the planning and development of
the ARPANET. Part of that work was a document
outlining a beginning design for the IMP subnetwork.
This specification led to a competitive procurement
for the design of the IMP subnetwork.
By late 1967 ARPA had given a contract to the
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to write the speci-
fications for the communications network they were
developing. In December of 1968, SRI issued a report
“A Study of Computer Network Design Parameters.”
Elmer Shapiro played an important role in the research
for this report. Based on this work, Lawrence Roberts
and Barry Wessler of ARPA wrote the final ARPA
version of the IMP specification.
18
This specification
was ready to be discussed at the June 1968 PI meeting.
The Program Plan “Resource Sharing Computer
Networks” was submitted June 3, 1968 by the IPTO to
the ARPA Director, who, with unusual speed,
approved it on June 21, 1968. It outlined the ob-
jectives of the research, and how the objectives would
be fulfilled. The purposed network was impressive, as
it would prove useful to both the computing research
centers that connected to the network and to the
military. The proposed research requirements would
provide immediate benefits to the computer centers
the network would connect. ARPA’s stated objectives
were to experiment with varied interconnections of
computers and sharing of resources in an attempt to
improve productivity of computer research. Just-
ification was drawn from technical needs in both the
scientific and military environments. The Program
Plan developed into a set of specifications. These
specifications were connected to a competitive
Request for Quotation (RFQ) to find an organization
that would design and build the IMP subnetwork.
19
Following the approval of the Program Plan, 140
potential bidders were mailed the Request for
Quotation. After a bidders conference, 12 proposals
were received and from them ARPA narrowed the
field down to four bidders. BBN was the eventual
recipient of the contract.
20
The second technical problem, as defined by the
ad hoc Communications Group, still remained to be
solved. The set of agreed upon communications
settings (known as a protocol), which would allow the
hosts to communicate with each other over the
subnetwork, had to be developed. This work was left
“for host sites to work out among themselves.”
21
This
meant that the software necessary to connect the hosts
to the IMP subnetwork had to be developed. ARPA
assigned this duty to the initially designated
ARPANET sites. Each of the first sites had a different
type of computer to connect. ARPA trusted that the
programmers at each site would be capable of
modifying their operating systems in order to connect
their systems to the subnetwork. In addition, the sites
needed to develop the software necessary to utilize
the other hosts on the network. By assigning them
responsibilities, ARPA made the academic computer
science community an active part of the ARPANET
development team.
22
Steve Crocker, one of graduate students involved
with the development of the earliest ARPANET
protocols, associates the placement of the initial
ARPANET sites at research institutions with the fact
that the ARPANET was ground-breaking research. He
wrote in a message responding to questions on the
COM-PRIV mailing list:
During the initial development of the
ARPANET, there was simply a limit as to
how far ahead anyone could see and
manage. The IMPs were placed in co-
operative ARPA R&D sites with the hope
that these research sites would figure out
how to exploit this new communication
medium.
23
The first sites of the ARPANET were picked to
provide either network support services or unique
resources. The key services the first four sites
provided were:
24
UCLA Network Measurement Center
SRI Network Information Center
UCSB Culler-Fried interactive mathematics
UTAH graphics (hidden line removal)
Crocker recounts that these four sites were selected
because they were “existing ARPA computer science
research contractors.” This was important because
“the research community could be counted on to take
some initiative.”
25
The very first site to receive an IMP was UCLA.
Professor Leonard Kleinrock of UCLA was involved
with much of the early development of the
ARPANET. His work in queuing theory gave him a
basis to develop measurement techniques used to
Page 29
monitor the ARPANET’s performance. This made it
natural that UCLA received one of the first nodes, as
it would be important to measure the network’s
activity from early on - one of the first two or three
sites had to be the measurement site in order for the
statistics to be based on correct data for analysis
purposes and UCLA accordingly came to be the
Network Measurement Center (NMC).
26
The Network Working Group
Once the initial sites were chosen, representatives
from each site gathered together to talk about how to
solve the technical problem of getting the hosts to
communicate with each other. The Completion Report
Draft tells us about this beginning:
To provide the hosts with a little impetus to
work on the host-to-host problems. ARPA
assigned Elmer Shapiro of SRI “to make
something happen,” a typically vague ARPA
assignment. Shapiro called a meeting in the
summer of 1968 that was attended by
programmers from several of the first hosts
to be connected to the network. Individuals
who were present have said that it was clear
from the meeting at that time, no one had
even any clear notions of what the fund-
amental host-to-host issues might be.
27
This group, which came to be known as the
Network Working Group (NWG), was exploring new
territory. The first meeting took place several months
before the first IMP was configured. In Crocker’s
recollections of the important developments produced
by the NWG that were provided as the introduction to
RFC-1000, the reader is reminded that the thinking
involved was groundbreaking and thus exciting.
Crocker remembers that the first meeting was chaired
by Elmer Shapiro, who initiated the conversation with
a list of questions.
28
Also present at this first meeting
were Steve Carr from University of Utah, Crocker
from UCLA, Jeff Rulifson from SRI, and Ron
Stoughton from UCSB. These attendees, most of them
graduate students, were the programmers described in
the Completion Report Draft.
According to Crocker, this was a seminal meet-
ing. The attendees could only be theoretical, as none
of the lowest levels of communication had been
developed yet. They needed a transport layer or
low-level communications platform to be able to build
upon. BBN would not deliver the first IMP until
August 30, 1969. It was important to meet before this
date, as the NWG “imagined all sorts of
possibilities.”
29
Only once they started thinking
together could this working group actually develop
anything. These fresh thoughts from fresh minds
helped to incubate new ideas. The Completion Report
Draft properly acknowledges what this early group
helped accomplished: “Their early thinking was at a
very high level.”
30
A concrete decision made at the
first meeting was to continue holding meetings
similar to the first one. This set the precedent of
holding exchange meetings at each of their sites.
Crocker, describing the problems facing these
networking pioneers, writes:
With no specific service definition in place
for what the IMPs were providing to the
hosts, there wasn’t any clear idea of what
work the hosts had to do. Only later did we
articulate the notion of building a layered set
of protocols with general transport services
on the bottom and multiple application--
specific protocols on the top. More
precisely, we understood quite early that we
wanted quite a bit of generality, but we
didn’t have a clear idea how to achieve it.
We struggled between a grand design and
getting something working quickly.
31
The initial protocol developments lead to DEL
(Decode-Encode Language) and NIL (Network
Interchange Language). These languages were more
advanced than what was needed and could not be
implemented at the time. The basic purpose was to
form an on-the-fly description that would tell the
receiving end how to understand the information that
would be sent. The discussions at this first set of
meetings were extremely abstract as neither ARPA
nor the universities had conceived of an official
charter. However, the lack of a specific charter
allowed the group to think broadly and openly.
BBN had provided details about the host-IMP
interface specifications from the IMP side. This
information gave the group some definite starting
points to build from. Soon after BBN provided more
information, members of the NWG, of BBN and of
the Network Analysis Corporation (NAC) met for the
first time on Valentine’s Day, 1969. The NAC had
been invited because it had been contracted by ARPA
to specify the topological design of the ARPANET
and to analyze its cost, performance, and reliability
characteristics.
32
As all the parties had different
Page 30
priorities, the meeting was a difficult one. BBN was
interested in the lowest level of making a reliable
connection. The programmers from the host sites were
interested in getting the hosts to communicate with
each either via various higher-level programs. Even
when the crew from BBN did not turn out to be the
“experts from the East,” members of the NWG still
expected that “a professional crew would show up
eventually to take over the problems we were dealing
with.”
A step of great importance that began the open
documentation process occurred as a result of a
“particularly delightful” meeting a month later in
Utah. The participants decided it was time to start
recording their meetings in a consistent fashion. What
resulted was a set of informal notes titled “Request for
Comments” (RFC). Crocker writes about their
formation:
I remember having great fear that we would
offend whomever the official protocol de-
signers were, and I spent a sleepless night
composing humble words for our notes. The
basic ground rules were that anyone could
say anything and that nothing was official.
And to emphasize the point, I labeled the
notes “Request for Comments.” I never
dreamed these notes would distributed
through the very medium we were discussing
in these notes. Talk about Sorcerer’s
Apprentice!
33
Crocker replaced Shapiro as the Chairman of the
NWG soon after the initial meeting. He describes how
they wrestled with the creation of the host-host
protocols:
Over the spring and summer of 1969 we
grappled with the detailed problems of
protocol design. Although we had a vision of
the vast potential for inter-computer
communication, designing usable protocols
was another matter. A custom hardware
interface and custom intrusion into the
operating system was going to be required
for anything we designed, and we anticipated
serious difficulty at each of the sites. We
looked for existing abstractions to use. It
would have been convenient if we could
have made the network simply look like a
tape drive to each host, but we knew that
wouldn’t do.
34
The first IMP was delivered to UCLA in late
August 1969. The next was delivered to SRI a month
later in October.
35
As soon as more than one IMP
existed, the NWG had to implement a working
communications protocol. The first set of pairwise
host protocols included remote login for interactive
use (telnet), and a way to copy files between remote
hosts (FTP). Crocker writes:
In particular, only asymmetric, user-server
relationships were supported. In December
1969, we met with Larry Roberts in Utah,
[and he] made it abundantly clear that our
first step was not big enough, and we went
back to the drawing board. Over the next
few months we designed a symmetric host-
-host protocol, and we defined an abstract
implementation of the protocol known as the
Network Control Program. (“NCP” later
came to be used as the name for the
protocol, but it originally meant the program
within the operating system that managed
connections. The protocol itself was known
blandly only as the host-host protocol.)
Along with the basic host-host protocol, we
also envisioned a hierarchy of protocols,
with Telnet, FTP and some splinter
protocols as the first examples. If we had
only consulted the ancient mystics, we
would have seen immediately that seven
layers were required.
36
The NWG went on to develop the protocols
necessary to make the network viable. The group
grew as more and more sites connected to the
ARPANET. The group became large enough (around
100 people) that one meeting was held in conjunction
with the 1971 Spring Joint Computer Conference in
Atlantic City. A major test of the NWG’s work came
in October 1971, when a meeting was held at MIT.
Crocker continues the story,
[A] major protocol “fly-off” – Represent-
atives from each site were on hand, and
everyone tried to log in to everyone else’s
site. With the exception of one site that was
completely down, the matrix was almost
completely filled in, and we had reached a
major milestone in connectivity.
37
The NWG was creating as what was called the
“host to host protocol.” Explaining why this was
important, the authors of the Completion Report Draft
wrote:
... [T]he problem is to design a host protocol
Page 31
which is sufficiently powerful for the kinds
of communication that will occur and yet can
be implemented in all of the various different
host computer systems. The initial approach
taken involved an entity called a “Network
Control Program” which would typically
reside in the executive of a host, such that
processes within a host would communicate
with the network through this Network
Control Program. The primary function of
the NCP is to establish connections, break
connections, switch connections, and control
flow. A layered approach was taken such that
more complex procedures (such as File
Transfer Procedures) were built on top of
similar procedures in the host Network
Control Program.
38
As the ARPANET grew, the number of users
bypassed the number of developers, signaling the
success of these networking pioneers. Crocker
appointed Alex McKenize and Jon Postel to replace
him as chairmen of the Network Working Group. The
Completion Report Draft details how this role
changed:
McKenzie and Postel interpreted their task to
be one of codification and coordination
primarily, and after a few more spurts of
activity the protocol definition process
settled for the most part into a status of a
maintenance effort.
39
ARPA was a management body that funded
academic computer scientists. ARPA’s funding paved
the way for these scientists to create the ARPANET.
BBN helped by developing the packet switching
techniques which served as the bottom level of
transmitting information between sites. The NWG
provided an important development in its “Request for
Comments” documentation, which made possible
developing the new protocols.
RFCs as “Open” Documentation
The open exchange of ideas initiated from the
very first meeting of the Network Working Group
continued in the Request For Comments. As meeting
notes, the RFCs were meant to keep members updated
on the status of various developments and ideas. They
were also meant to gather responses from people. RFC
3, “Documentation Conventions,” documents the
“rules” governing the production of these notes
beginning with the open distribution rules:
Documentation of the NWG’s effort is
through notes such as this. Notes may be
produced at any site by anybody and in-
cluded in this series.
40
These opening sentences invite anyone willing to
be helpful in the protocol definition process. This is
important because all restrictions are lifted by these
words, allowing for the open process aimed for.
(RFC-3 is reproduced in the appendix at the end of
this chapter.) The guide goes on to describe the rules
concerning the contents of the RFCs:
The content of a NWG note may be any
thought, suggestion, etc. related to the
HOST software or other aspect of the net-
work. Notes are encouraged to be timely
rather than polished. Philosophical positions
without examples or other specifics, specific
suggestions or implementation techniques
without introductory or background
explication, and explicit questions without
any attempted answers are all acceptable.
The minimum length for a NWG note is one
sentence.
41
In RFC-3, Crocker continues to explain the
philosophy behind the perhaps unprecedented open-
ness represented:
These standards (or lack of them) are stated
explicitly for two reasons. First, there is a
tendency to view a written statement as ipso
facto authoritative, and we hope to promote
the exchange and discussion of considerably
less than authoritative ideas. Second, there is
a natural hesitancy to publish something
unpolished, and we hope to ease this
inhibition.
42
This open process encouraged and led to the exchange
of information. Technical development is only
successful when information is allowed to flow freely
and easily between the parties involved. Encouraging
participation is the main principle that made the
development of the Net possible.
Statements like the ones contained in RFC-3 are
democratic in their support of a process of openness.
They were written during the late 1960's, a time of
popular protest for freedom of speech. People were
demanding more of a say in how their countries were
run. The open environment needed to develop new
technologies is consistent with the cry for more
democracy by students and other throughout the
Page 32
world during the 1960s. What is amazing is the collab-
oration of the NWG (mostly graduate students) and
ARPA (a component of the military) during the 1960s
and 1970s. This seems unusual given the active
student anti-war movement. Robert Braden of the
Internet Activities Board reflects on this collaboration:
For me, participation in the development of
the ARPANET and the Internet protocols has
been very exciting. One important reason it
worked, I believe, is that there were a lot of
very bright people all working more or less
in the same direction, led by some very wise
people in the funding agency. The result was
to create a community of network re-
searchers who believed strongly that collab-
oration is more powerful than competition
among researchers. I don’t think any other
model would have gotten us where we are
today.
43
Such collaboration is why the work of these computer
scientists led to such amazing and democratic achieve-
ments, the Net and the cooperative culture of the
Net.
44
Calling their notes a “Request for Comment”
established a significant tradition. It predates the
Usenet post, which in a fashion could also be called a
“request for comment.” Both are the presentation of a
particular person’s ideas, questions, or comments to
the general public for comments, criticism or
suggestions. Early RFCs established this tradition.
Many RFCs are in fact comments on previous RFCs.
45
Conclusion
How were the developments of the ARPANET
made possible? None of the participants had previous
solutions to any of the problems they faced in
establishing a working packet-switched testbed with
host-to-host connectivity. They had to put much
thought and work into their research. As the resulting
ARPANET was tremendously successful and fulfilled
ARPA’s project objectives, it is important to see what
can be learned from the research and research methods
from which it emerged. Bernie Cosell, who worked at
BBN during this early period, describes the
importance of an open process in a developmental
situation:
*no*one* had the necessary expertise [and
vision] to figure any of this out on their own.
The cultures among the early groups were
VERY different [-] multics, sigma-7, IBM...
at Rand, ...PDP-10s at BBN and SRI... [and
possibly] UCSB and Utah had PDP-10's,
too. The pie-in-the-sky applications ranged
over a WIDE landscape, with no one
knowing quite where it would lead. Some
kind of free, cross-cultural info/idea
exchange *had* to happen.
46
The computer scientists and others involved were
encouraged in their work by ARPA’s philosophy of
gathering the best computer scientists working in the
field and supporting them:
IPT usually does little day-to-day manage-
ment of its contractors. Especially with its
research contracts, IPT would not be pro-
ducing faster results with such management
as research must progress at its own pace.
IPT has generally adopted a mode of man-
agement that entails finding highly moti-
vated, highly skilled contractors, giving
them a task, and allowing them to proceed
by themselves.
47
The work of the Network Working Group was
vital to the development of the ARPANET. Vinton
Cerf, another of the graduate students involved with
the early protocol development and still closely
connected to the Internet, echoed this sentiment in his
paper “An Assessment of ARPANET Protocols”:
The history of the Advanced Research
Project Agency resource sharing computer
network (ARPANET) is in many ways a
history of the study, development, and
implementation of protocols.”
48
Cerf supports Cosell’s opinion about the uncertainty
and newness of the entire project:
The tasks facing the ARPANET design
teams were often un-clear, and frequently
required agreements which had never been
contemplated before (e.g., common proto-
cols to permit different operating systems
and hardware to communicate). The success
of the effort, seen in retrospect, is
astonishing, and much credit is due to those
who were willing to commit themselves to
the job of putting the ARPANET together.
49
The NWG’s work blazed the trail, which the
developers of the TCP/IP suite of protocols
(Transport Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol)
successfully followed when the need to expand and
include other networks based on technologies other
Page 33
than NCP arose. The principles embodied in RFC-3
and the open RFC documentation provided a strong
foundation that began with NCP and was continued by
the work on TCP/IP. NCP was developed in the field,
and versions of it were released early in its
development so various programmers could work on
implementing and improving the protocol. In addition,
all specifications were free and easily available for
people to examine and comment on. Through this
principle of early release, problems and kinks were
found and worked out in a timely manner. The future
developers of TCP/IP learned from the developers of
NCP a practice of developing from the bottom up. The
bottom-up model allows for a wide range of people
and experiences to join in and perfect the protocol and
make it the best possible.
The public funding of the ARPANET project
meant that the documentation could be made public
and freely available. The documentation was neither
restricted nor classified. This open process encourag-
ing communication was necessary for these pioneers
to succeed. Research in new fields of study requires
that researchers cooperate and communicate in order
to share their expertise. Such openness is especially
critical when no one person has the answers in ad-
vance. In his article, “The Evolution of Packet Switch-
ing,” Larry Roberts described the public nature of the
process:
Since the ARPANET was a public project
connecting many major universities and
research institutions, the implementation and
performance details were widely published.
50
The people at the forefront of development of
these protocols were the members of the Network
Working Group, many of whom came from academic
institutions, and who therefore had the support and
time needed for the research. In summing up the
achievements of the process that developed the
ARPANET, the Completion Report Draft explains:
The ARPANET development was an ex-
tremely intense activity in which contri-
butions were made by many of the best
computer scientists in the United States.
Thus, almost all of the “major technical
problems” already mentioned received con-
tinuing attention and the detailed approach to
those problems changed several times during
the early years of the ARPANET effort.
51
Fundamental to the ARPANET, as explained by
the Completion Report Draft, was the discovery of a
new way of looking at computers. The developers of
the ARPANET viewed the computer as a com-
munications device rather than only as an arithmetic
device.
52
This new view, which came from research
conducted by those in academic computer science,
made the building of the ARPANET possible. Such a
shift in understanding the role of the computer is
fundamental in advancing computer science. The
ARPANET research has provided a rich legacy for
the further advancement of computer science, and it
is important that the significant lessons learned be
studied and used to further advance the study of
computer science.
NOTES
1. F. Heart, A. McKenzie, J. McQuillan, and D. Walden,
ARPANET Completion Report (Washington, D.C.: DARPA
and BBN, 1978) III-132. (hereafter, Completion Report).
2. ARPANET Completion Report Draft, September 9, 1977,
unpublished manuscript, III-6. (hereafter, Completion
Report Draft).
3. ibid.
4. ibid., III
5, “Interview with J. C. R. Licklider” conducted by William
Aspray and Arthur L. Norberg, tape recording, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 28 October 1988, OH 150, Charles
Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
6. Completion Report Draft, III-7.
7. ibid.
8. ibid., III-21.
9. See, for example, J. C. R. Licklider and Robert Taylor,
“The Computer as a Communication Device,” in In
Memoriam: J. C. R. Licklider 1915-1990 (Palo Alto, CA.:
Digital Systems Research Center, 1990), originally
published in Science and Technology, April 1968.
10. Completion Report Draft, III-23.
11. ibid., III-24.
12. ibid.
13. ibid.
14. RFC-1336, “Who’s Who in the Internet,” G. Malkin, May
1992, 15.
15. See Chapter 8 of this volume, “The Birth and Development
of the ARPANET” and Completion Report, section 1.1.2,
starting on III-9.
16. Completion Report Draft, III-25, III-26.
17. Completion Report, II-7-II-8.
18. Completion Report Draft, III-31-III-33.
19. ibid., III-35 and Completion Report, II-2.
20. Completion Report Draft, III-35, III-36.
21. ibid., III-67.
22. ibid., III-39 and personal discussion with Alex McKenzie,
November 1, 1993.
23. E-mail message to Com-Priv mailing list (com-priv@
psi.com). Subject “Re: RFC-1000 (Partial response to part
Page 34
1).” Date: Nov. 27, 1993.
24. Vinton G. Cerf, private e-mail correspondence, dated Nov.
27, 1993. Subject: “Re: Early Days of the ARPANET and
the NWG.”
25. “The Origins of RFCs” by Stephen D. Crocker is contained
in J. Reynolds and J. Postal, RFC-1000, 1.
26. The following quotes show some of the reasoning that went
into the choice of the initial ARPANET sites:
CCN’s [The Campus Computing Network of UCLA]
chance to obtain a connection to the ARPANET was
a result of the presence at UCLA of Professor L.
Kleinrock and his students, including S. Crocker, J.
Postel, and V. Cerf. This group was not only involved
in the original design of the network and the Host
protocols, but also was to operate the Network
Measurement Center (NMC). For these reasons the
first delivered IMP was installed at UCLA, and ARPA
was thus able to easily offer CCN the opportunity for
connection. (Completion Report Draft, III-689).
UCLA was specifically asked to take on the task of a
“Network Measurement Center” with the objective of
studying the performance of the network as it was
built, grown, and modified; SRI was specifically asked
to take on the task of a “Network Information Center”
with the objective of collecting information about the
network, about host resources, and at the same time
generating computer based tools for storing and
accessing that collected information (Completion
Report Draft, II-16).
The accessibility of distributed resources carries with
it the need for an information service (either
centralized or distributed) that enables users to learn
about those resources. This was recognized at the PI
[ed. Primary Instigators] meeting in Michigan in the
spring of 1967. At the time, Doug Engelbart and his
group at the Stanford Research Institute were already
involved in research and development to provide a
computer-based facility to augment human interaction.
Thus, it was decided that Stanford Research Institute
would be a suitable place for a “Network Information
Center” (NIC) to be established for the ARPANET.
With the beginning of implementation of the network
in 1969, construction also began on the NIC at SRI
(Completion Report Draft, III-60).
27. Completion Report Draft, III-67.
28. E-mail message to Con-Priv mailing list. Subject: “Re:
RFC-1000 (End of response to part 1).” Date: Nov. 27,
1993.
29. RFC-1000.
30. Completion Report Draft, III-67.
31. E-mail message to Con-Priv mailing list. Subject: “Re:
RFC-1000 (Response to part 2),” Date: Nov. 27, 1993.
32. Completion Report, III-30.
33. RFC-1000, 3.
34. ibid.
35. In RFC-1000, Stephen Crocker reports on the process of the
installation of the first IMP:
[T]ime was pressing: The first IMP was due to be
delivered to UCLA September 1, 1969, and the rest
were scheduled at monthly intervals.
At UCLA we scrambled to build a host-IMP
interface. SDS, the builder of the Sigma 7, wanted
many months and many dollars to do the job.
Mike Wingfield, another grad student at UCLA,
stepped in and offered to get interface built in six
weeks for a few thousand dollars. He had a gorgeous,
fully instrumented interface working in five and one
half weeks. I was in charge of the software, and we
were naturally running a bit late. September 1 was
Labor Day, so I knew I had a couple of extra days to
debug the software. Moreover, I had heard BBN was
having some timing troubles with the software, so I
had some hope they’d miss the ship date. And I
figured that first some Honeywell people would
install the hardware – IMPs were built out of
Honeywell 516s in those days – and then BBN people
would come in a few days later to shake down the
software. An easy couple of weeks of grace.
BBN fixed their timing trouble, air shipped the
IMP, and it arrived on our loading dock on Saturday,
August 30. They arrived with the IMP, wheeled it
into our computer room, plugged it in and the
software restarted from where it had been when the
plug was pulled in Cambridge. Still Saturday, August
30. Panic time at UCLA.
The second IMP was delivered to SRI at the
beginning of October, and ARPA’s interest was
intense. Larry Roberts and Barry Wessler came by for
a visit on November 21, and we actually managed to
demonstrate a Telnet-like connection to SRI.
36. RFC-1000, 4.
37. ibid.
38. Completion Report Draft, II-24.
39. ibid., III-69.
40. RFC-3, “Documentation Conventions,” Stephen Crocker,
April 1969, 1.
41. ibid.
42. ibid.
43. RFC-1336, 5.
44. This democratic community is in danger of being
fundamentally altered. This study of the history of the
development of the ARPANET in conjunction with
Chapter 3, “The Social Forces Behind the Development of
Usenet” is meant to help people understand where the Net
has come from, in order to defend it, and try to fight to
keep it open and democratic - “the eighth wonder of the
world,” as some call the Internet.
45. Some examples of comments upon comments include:
RFC-1 Crocker, S. Host software, 1969 April 7
RFC-65 Walden, D. Comments on Host/Host Protocol
document #1
RFC-36 Crocker, S. Protocol notes, 1970 March 16
RFC-38 Wolfe, S. Comments on network protocol from
NWG/RFC #36
RFC-39 Harslem, E.; Heafner, J. Comments on protocol
Page 35
re: NWG/RFC #36
RFC-33 Crocker, S. New Host-Host Protocol, 1970
February 12
RFC-47 Crowther, W. BBN’s comments on NWG/RFC
#331970 April 20
46. Bernie Cosell, “Re: RFC-1000 - Questions about the
Origins of ARPANET Protocols 2/2,” alt.folklore.com-
puters, Nov. 23, 1993.
47. Completion Report Draft, III-47.
48. Vinton Cerf, “An Assessment of ARPANET Protocols,”
Infotech Education Ltd., Stanford University, California,
(n.d.), 1.
49. ibid.
50. Lawrence Roberts, “The Evolution of Packet Switching,”
Proceedings of the IEEE 66 (November 1978): 267.
51. ibid., III-24.
52. ibid., III-24.
Special thanks to Alexander McKenzie of BBN,
Stephen Crocker of TIS, and Vinton Cerf of CNRI for
making research materials available.
An early version of this chapter by Michael Hauben
was posted on Usenet in January 1994.
Appendix
Network Working Group 4689
RFC-3 April 1969
Steve Crocker
UCLA
DOCUMENTATION CONVENTIONS
The Network Working Group seems to consist of
Steve Carr of Utah, Jeff Rulifson and Bill Duvall at
SRI, and Steve Crocker and Gerard Deloche at UCLA.
Membership is not closed.
The Network Working Group (NWG) is con-
cerned with the HOST software, the strategies for
using the network, and initial experiments with the
network.
Documentation of the NWG’s effort is through
notes such as this. Notes may be produced at any site
by anybody and included in this series.
CONTENT
The content of a NWG note may be any thought,
suggestion, etc. related to the HOST software or other
aspect of the network. Notes are encouraged to be
timely rather than polished. Philosophical positions
without examples or other specifics, specific
suggestions or implementation techniques without
introductory or background explication, and explicit
questions without any attempted answers are all
acceptable. The minimum length for a NWG note is
one sentence.
These standards (or lack of them) are stated explicitly
for two reasons. First, there is a tendency to view a
written statement as ipso facto authoritative, and we
hope to promote the exchange and discussion of
considerably less than authoritative ideas. Second,
there is a natural hesitancy to publish something
unpolished, and we hope to ease this inhibition.
FORM
Every NWG note should bear the following infor-
mation:
1. “Network Working Group”
“Request for Comments:” x
where x is a serial number.
Serial numbers are assigned by Bill Duvall
at SRI
2. Author and affiliation
3. Date
4. Title. The title need not be unique.
DISTRIBUTION
One copy only will be sent from the author’s site to”:
1. Bob Kahn, BB&N
2. Larry Roberts, ARPA
3. Steve Carr, UCLA
4. Jeff Rulifson, UTAH
5. Ron Stoughton, UCSB
6. Steve Crocker, UCLA
Reproduction if desired may be handled locally.
OTHER NOTES
Two notes (1 & 2) have been written so far. These are
both titled HOST Software and are by Steve Crocker
and Bill Duvall, separately.
Other notes planned are on:
1. Network Timetable
2. The Philosophy of NIL
3. Specifications for NIL
4. Deeper Documentation of HOST Software.
Page 36
Report from Berlin
The Vision Lives
1
By Jay Hauben
In 1992, Michael Hauben began research about
what was then still called the Net (the Internet, Usenet,
FidoNet, BITNET, etc.). Not only was his research
about the Net, it was conducted on the Net. This
research led him and Ronda Hauben to write the book
Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the
Internet.
2
The essence of Netizens is the prediction
that the impact on society of the Net could be over-
whelmingly positive. The authors examine the effect
the Net was beginning to have on people’s lives, on
politics, the press, publishing, democratic decision
making, etc. They envision a participatory democratic
future made possible by the Net. But throughout their
analysis they raise the possibility of derailment of this
vision if the Net loses government protection or if an
unregulated commercialism is allowed to impose its
agenda on the development of the Net.
For a long time, in the U.S. at least, the questions
of social impact and regulating commercialization
raised in Netizens were only minimally discussed. The
situation now seems to be changing. An Association
of Internet Researchers (AoIR) is growing with a
strong component of sociologists and others con-
cerned with social impact. Universities and colleges
are beginning to introduce Internet Studies degrees,
with social impact being a key question. In Europe, it
is beginning to be realized that the project of European
unification will be profoundly affected by the social
impact of the new technologies – especially those of
information and communication. An indication of the
importance being given to considerations of the vision
and precautions presented in Netizens was an interna-
tional conference, “Innovations for an e-Society:
Challenges for Technology Assessment” held in
Germany in October 2001.
3
On October 17 to 19, about 200 researchers par-
ticipated in this conference in Berlin. The language of
the conference was English with participants from
Germany and many other countries present. The focus
of the conference was the impact on society which
will result because of recent technological develop-
ments, especially the Internet. The assumption of the
organizers was that the new technologies are bound to
cause profound societal changes. The sum total of
these changes the conference called “e-society.” The
question for the conference was what will or what
should e-society look like?
The conference was organized on behalf of the
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The Ministry has written of its commitment to a
broad-based societal dialogue about how to shape the
future.
(4)
This conference seemed intended to serve
that purpose at least in that it invited participation
from researchers in many fields from the academic,
public and commercial sectors, and from many
countries.
The participants were welcomed by Edelgard
Bulmahn, the German Federal Minister for Education
and Research.
5
She outlined the challenge: for there to
be social justice in the future, there must be social
purpose given to the e-society that is emerging.
Detectable in her welcome was a sense that perhaps
the current direction of e-society might be problem-
atic. The goals of e-society research should be “that
everyone benefit and no one be marginalized.” For
this to occur the Minister said there must be social
discussion of what in the past guides us to decide
what path society wants to follow. To have this
discussion citizens need information about science
and technology and scientists need a sense of soci-
ety’s needs. She concluded that the increasingly rapid
distribution of new information and communication
technologies requires an international dialogue on
these questions and wished the participants a fruitful
exchange of experiences.
Next, Armin Grunwald, director of the coordinat-
ing Institute for Technology and Assessment and
Systems Analysis (ITAS) set the goal of the confer-
ence. He raised a question: Can technological devel-
opments be influenced according to society’s goals or
does technological development follow its own or a
market dynamic? This question for the conference
was in the context of the fear that the current direction
might be toward deepening the social divides digitally
rather than toward a globally networked civil society.
Dr. Grunwald was optimistic that society as a whole
could, with real effort, shape the emerging e-society
according to societal goals and values and that was
the reason for the conference.
6
The spectrum of research and opinion at the
conference demonstrated an opening up of the quest-
ions for a broader than usual participation. It is not
Page 37
uncommon in current discussions of the changes that
are expected in society due to new technologies to
mention the need for transparency, for the protection
of privacy, for life-long learning and for worker
mobility in the new Europe. At this conference these
were mentioned but they were also challenged. A
keynote speaker from the commercial sector described
in positive terms a Lifelong Learning project as a
backbone for advanced education and training.
7
His
presentation was questioned by a participant: “Do
people really want to spend their lives being retrained
for new jobs as their old ones are made obsolete or
would quality of life require something else?” Life-
long learning was seen from this point of view as a
substitute for a commitment to a shorter work week or
fewer hours of work per day and other advantages for
workers from the new technology. The narrow need
for a constantly retrained workforce was countered by
the criteria of a higher quality of stable and secure life
for all. Similarly, the projection of a mobile work
force as part of the goal of a “Mobile Europe”
8
was
questioned by a participant
9
: “Have you asked people
if they want the Mobile Europe you are planning?”
The implication being there may be more than one
vision of Mobile Europe. The goal of the unimpeded
flow of ideas and people across all borders both
internal and external versus the goal of the easy flow
from job to job. The former was proposed as socially
desirable. The latter was criticized as too narrow.
Privacy was raised as a universal concern. But in
the E-Health sessions it was reported that more than
80% of people polled in Iceland favored the gathering
of medical data for open medical research even if that
required relinquishing the confidentiality of medical
records.
10
Icelanders apparently felt the social value of
making their medical records available overrode the
personal value championed by some doctors of keep-
ing them private. Besides this difference over the
importance of privacy, there was a difference over the
need for transparency. There was much talk at the
conference of the need for transparency and openness
as necessary for the social success of the e-society.
But it was argued in one of the presentations that
transparency in nature is achieved by looking through
a glass or crystal. Transparency implies something can
be watched, but the goal of social shaping requires
broad participation and influence on the process not
merely more open disclosure about the process.
11
At most conferences in the U.S., privacy, trans-
parency, life-long learning and representative democ-
racy are mainly discussed. Differences like those
above suggest that this conference had participants
from a broader than usual spectrum of society. One
conference preprint article notes there is a view that
e-governance relates to the performance of govern-
ment services including the delivery of information to
the public via information and communication tech-
nologies (ICT). But the researchers comment that this
view is too narrow. They see the citizens of European
countries as being “less prone to accept experts’
opinions and regulators’ decisions without having a
say.” They suggest governance needs to be “a more
broad and creative idea... extending the participation
of civil society in the decision process that concerns
all citizens.”
12
They argue that social “safety can
follow only from an open dialogue, early extended
participation and a negotiated partnership among a
multiplicity of parties.”
The conference organizers raised the need for
social shaping of the emerging e-society not mere
adaptation to it. Among the researchers there were
some who understood that such social shaping re-
quires actual guidance based on the values and
principles of the citizens of the future Europe. One set
of researchers reported about citizen cells or panels
that they convened.
13
The citizen panels they de-
scribed seemed more than a research tool. They were
a possible prototypic form for citizen participation.
Randomly chosen citizens were invited to attend the
panels to answer the question, do people want Internet
access and for what purposes? Since their wages
would be paid to them, release from their jobs would
be arranged and an honorarium offered, enough
people could attend to make the panels a good cross
section of the citizens. A consensus developed in all
the panels that universal access to the Internet would
be valuable. But valuable for what? The participants
knew that their deliberations and opinions would be
reported back to the government body that sponsored
the study. The researchers reported that the consensus
on that question was valuable for watching over the
politicians and political structures about which the
citizens had much skepticism.
The citizen panels and research reported on by
the German researchers can be compared with the
research reported on by an American researcher. The
American had asked with his research, did the new
media help to increase the number of voters, i.e., to
get out the vote? He reported, “My survey research
shows... the Internet to have no effect on voter turn-
Page 38
out.”
14
His question and answer exposed a different
understanding of participation than that of the German
researchers discussed above. Participation for the
American researcher meant voting. In the German
research it meant serving on a citizen panel. In Ger-
many and in Europe in general, low voter turnout is
considered an indicator of the breakdown of the
political process and the need for a reexamination of
the process. In America, low voter turn out is often
ascribed to citizen contentment with the status quo.
The observation by Michael Hauben that the net
makes possible “...a revitalization of society, the
frameworks... being redesigned from the bottom up
[and] a new more democratic world... becoming
possible”
15
was reflected in the German research but
not the American. The questions of this conference
and its goals suggested a desire for revitalization and
even some from the bottom up. The citizen panel
research echoed Hauben’s observation that “the
common people have a unique voice that is now being
aired in a new way.”
16
Another question that surfaced at the conference
concerned the effect on European unity of corporate
globalization or marketization. The Federal Minister
raised the goal of reconciling innovation (market-
ization of technology) and social justice. She thought
the reconciliation was only possible if the debate over
shaping the future or setting goals was broadened to
hear from all sectors of society. Two European Com-
mission researchers who were looking at the future
Europe 10 years and 20 years from now
(17)
reported
they were surprised by the broad anti-corporate
globalization demonstrations and the criticism of
global marketization in Seattle (Nov. 1999) and
especially in Genoa (June 2001). In response other
conference participants pointed out that a narrow
economic agenda not under social or governmental
regulation is bound to produce social tension and
protest. The corporate agenda of privatization and
diminished governmental services and standards, and
for the expansion of the private sector at the expense
of the public sector, seemed to some to cloud the
chance for social cohesion and thus endangering the
chances for a more integrated or united Europe. These
participants echoed the warning J.C.R. Licklider and
Robert Taylor made when they envisioned the Internet
in 1968. “For the society, the impact will be good or
bad depending mainly on the question: Will ‘to be on
line’ be a privilege or a right? If only a favored seg-
ment of the population gets a chance to enjoy the
advantage of ‘intelligence amplification,’ the network
may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of
intellectual opportunity.”
18
Armin Grunwald presented the conference wrap
up. He suggested that a proper summary of the
conference was that after decades of deregulation
there was a need for reregulation. Only then he im-
plied could the social shaping of the future that the
conference was aiming for be achieved. It was not, he
argued, to return to hierarchical decision making but
to engage in social dialogues with broad participation
from all sectors. That would require allowing enough
time for broad deliberation and careful assessment.
Then a normative framework based on rule of law and
respect for human rights could emerge.
The conference was planned so that its events
would contribute to the work it was to accomplish.
The welcome to Berlin included the recognition that
a vibrant Berlin required an advanced technological
base. That theme was reinforced by the banquet
dinner speaker historian Hubert Laitko. His speech
may have been too long for a dinner speech but was
valuable for the detailed telling of the importance of
scientific research in the last 150 years in the develop-
ment of industry and technology in Berlin. In spite of
wars, Nazism and the division of Berlin for 44 years,
a tradition of pure scientific research and networks of
creative activity continues in Berlin based he said on
open intellectual communication and exchange
among institutions and researchers.
19
As if to prove
this last point, it was a special treat to have many
scholars from the former East Germany add their
spirit and expertise to this conference. Even the bus
ride to the banquet was made into a guided tour
narrated by a architect although some Berliners on the
bus disagreed with some of his narrative.
To this reporter from the U.S., the conference
seemed different from the U.S. norm. For the U.S.
government and researchers the dominant Internet
question since at least 1991 has been privatization and
commercialization. Now in Europe, or at least at this
conference called by the German government, the
dual questions of the book Netizens, the great social
potential of the Internet and great danger of the
commercialization and privatization were being taken
up. To me the work of this conference was a positive
development in the direction pioneered by Michael
Hauben and Ronda Hauben.
Page 39
Notes:
1. This report is written for the memorial issue of the Amateur
Computerist honoring the life and work of Michael Hauben. The
reporter attended the conference as a press guest.
2. Online since January 1994. Now at http://www
.columbia.edu/~rh120/netbook/. In hard cover edition since 1997
from the IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA.
Hereafter, Netizens.
3. Innovations for an e-Society. Challenges for Technology
Assessment. Sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and
society/ See also Innovations for an e-Society. Challenges for
Technology Assessment, Congress Pre-Prints, ISBN
3-89750-0973. Hereafter Pre-Prints.
4. Report of the Federal Government on Research 2000, BMBF,
Bonn, no date, pages 10 and 46.
5. “Welcome Address,” handout at the conference.
6. “Technology Assessment for Shaping the e-Society,” copy
provided by the author.
7. Joachim Schaper, “E-Learning as a Chance and Challenge for
Lifelong Learning,” presented at Plenary Session III.
8. Mathias Weber and J.C. Burgelman, “Mobile Europe: Balanc-
ing Technological Change and Europe’s Socio-Economic
Objectives.” See Pre-Prints, Section 8.
9. Karsten Weber. His presentation at the conference, "Who
should have access to which information?" can be seen at
http://www.phil.euv-frankfurt-o.de/download/Access.pdf
10. Janine Morgall and Ingunn Bjornsdottir, “Confidentiality an
issue for whom?.” See Pre-Prints, Session 4.
11. B. De Marchi, S. Functowicz and A. Guimaraes Pereira,
“e2-Governance: electronic and extended.” Pre-Prints, Session
3.
12. ibid.
13. Hans Kastenholz and Elmar Wienhofer, “Civic Participation
and the Internet. Opportunities and Limits of Electronic Democ-
racy.” Pre-Prints, Session 3.
14. Bruce Bimber, “Information Technology and the “New”
Politics: Lessons from the American Experience.” Pre-Prints,
Session 3.
15. Netizens, page 3.
16. ibid., page 10.
17. K. Mathias Weber and J.C. Burgelman, participants in the
European Commission’s Institute for Prospective Technological
Studies (IPTS) Futures Project.
18.”The Computer as a Communication Device.” In Science and
Technology: For the Technical Men in Management. No 76.
April, 1968. Pages 21-31. Also reprinted in In Memoriam: J.C.R.
Licklider: 1915-1990. Report 61. Systems Research Center.
Digital Equipment Corporation. Palo Alto, California. August 7,
1990. Pages 21-41.
19. Unfortunately only an abstract of his talk was included
among the preprints and the talk is not available electronically.
The opinions expressed in articles are those of their
authors and not necessarily the opinions of The
Amateur Computerist newsletter. We welcome
submissions from a spectrum of viewpoints.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Ronda Hauben
William Rohler
Norman O. Thompson
Michael Hauben
(1973-2001)
Jay Hauben
The Amateur Computerist invites submissions. Articles can
be submitted via e-mail: [email protected]
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Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in a
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author and source of article cited.
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