The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizens by Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu "Netizens are Net Citizens who utilize the Net from their home, workplace, school, library, etc. These people are among those who populate the Net, and make it a resource of human beings. These netizens participate to help make the Net both an intellectual and a social resource." from "Further Thoughts about Netizens" http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/CS/netizen_thoughts.html I am happy to be here today and to be the first paper in this symposium. The title of my talk is "The International and Scientific Origins of the Internet and the Emergence of the Netizens." It is an honor to have this symposium in Asia, in Beijing, as new and important developments regarding the Internet are being explored by netizens in Korea, China and other countries in East Asia. Also this is a period when the future of the Internet and its development is being contested. There is a struggle ongoing between the US government and a number of countries around the world who are meeting under the sponsorship of the UN's World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) to try to determine the management model that is needed for the international administration of the Internet's infrastructure. But to solve a problem like this it is useful to have some idea of how the Internet was developed and what are the salient aspects of that development. In my talk today, I want to explore these aspects and in turn try to unravel some of the myths about the Internet and its origins that hide its actual character. I have a draft paper I have prepared where I explore the issues in greater detail than I will speak about today First, a common view of the Internet is that it was created within the US by the US Department of Defense as a way to have a communication system that would survive a nuclear war. This is a fallacious view of the origin of the Internet. It is inaccurate in many aspects. Notably: 1) The Internet was created as a scientific research project by an open and international research process, not as a top secret Department of Defense product oriented development. 2) The Internet is an international and not an American creation. Though many American researchers did critical work to develop the Internet, the research was part of the activity of an international research community. 3) The goal of Internet research was to create a means to make communication possible across the boundaries of different networks. During the period of the birth of the Internet (1973-1983), countries like Great Britain, France, Canada and others were either actually creating their own national or specific computer networks, or were developing plans to do so. These networks would all be different technically and would be owned and operated by different political and administrative entities. How to provide for communication across the boundaries of these diverse networks was the problem to be solved. In my paper I go into greater detail about the process of creating the protocol TCP/IP to make it possible to communicate across the boundaries of dissimilar networks. I show this graphic of the research collaboration by Norwegian researchers connected with NORSAR [(NORwegian Seismic ARray). (1) British reseachers connected with University College London, and American researchers working as part of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA. But for my talk today I want to focus on what I propose are some of the scientific origins of the research that have made the Internet possible. And I want to argue that it is these scientific origins, which are poorly understood and not often recognized, but that are at the essence of the nature of the Internet. To understand these scientific origins of the Internet's development, I want to step back to the early post World War II period. During this period there was a scientific ferment to understand the science of communication. A community of scientists, mathematicians, engineers and social scientists were interested in exploring the processes of communication. One means they adopted was to participate in an interdisciplinary community of researchers who met bi yearly or yearly. The researchers pursued different disciplines and spoke different scientific languages. Their effort was to try to bridge the boundaries that separated their disciplines. The meetings of the group were known by different names, but during one period they were called the Josiah Macy Jr Foundation conferences on Cybernetics (also known as "feedback" or "self organizing systems). JCR Licklider (or Lick as he asked people to call him) was a research scientist who had made certain scientific advances in communication research. His PhD thesis broke new ground by mapping where in the brain of the cat, different pitches of sound were received and how this led to the perception of different frequencies of sound.(2) Licklider was deeply interested in the study of communication. He attended one of the 10 Macy Foundation meetings on Cybernetics, Then along with other scientists, he got support from the National Science Foundation(NSF) in the US to have a meeting in 1954 at MIT similar to the Macy Foundation meetings on Cybernetics that ended in 1953. The title of the conference was "Problems in Human Communication and Control". The notes of the meeting were then transcribed. Licklider edited the notes. The proceedings was published, much in the same way the Macy Conference proceedings were published. An important interest of Licklider's was in the workings of the brain and how more advanced computer development could help the research collaboration of scientists and engineers. Of particular interest was a form of modeling. In a paper written with Robert Taylor in 1968, Licklider and Taylor wrote: "By far the most numerous, most sophisticated and most important models are those that reside in men's minds. (p. 9 paper) An example of how the computer could help represent models for Licklider was the program Sketchpad created by Ivan Sutherland. Describing a demonstration he had seen of Sutherland's modeling program, Warren Teitelman, then a graduate student at MIT, writes: "Sutherland sketched the girder of a bridge and indicated the points at which members were connected together by rivets. He drew a support at each end of the girder and a load at the center. The model showed the girder sagging under the load and a number appeared on each member showing the tensions there." Sutherland was able to add the support needed using the modeling program. Then the bridge was, according to the computer simulation program, able to maintain its weight. This is an example of the encouraging potential that Licklider envisioned if the scientific research community could acquire the technology they needed for their modeling. Licklider not only felt that modeling was critical for scientific research, but for society as well. Describing the modeling that Licklider believed characterized the functioning of the brain, he and Taylor write: "In richness, plasticity, facility and economy, the mental model has no peer, but in other respects it has shortcomings." The primary shortcomings of such a model is that it is stored in the brain of only a single individual. Hence: "It can be observed and manipulated only by one person" In order for such models to serve a social function, there is a need, as Licklider and Taylor explain, for the models in the head of individuals to become part of a collaborative process. They explain: "Society rightly distrusts the modeling done by a single mind." More specifically: "Society demands (...) [what-ed] amounts to the requirement that individual models be compared and brought into some degree of accord. The requirement for communicating which we now define concisely [as-ed] 'cooperative' modeling -- [is-ed]cooperation in the construction, maintenance and use of a model" Licklider and Taylor then explain that like the process they believe is ongoing in the brain, what is needed for such cooperative modeling is: "a plastic or moldable medium that can be modeled, a dynamic medium in which processes will flow into consequences." Most important for such a medium is that it supports collaborative contributions and processes - that it be: "a common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all." Licklider and Taylor envisioned that the developing online community would find the capability for such collaborative modeling as the Internet developed and that having access to this plastic collaborative environment would be a boon to the advancement of society and of science. Along with the need for such a moldable medium for scientific collaborative development, Licklider also maintained that there would be a need for a collaborative community with this capability to support continuing network development and to intervene to help with the problems that would develop when government officials who didn't understand the nature of computer technology, would be charged with making the decisions needed for its development. In 1960, a series of talks were held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of MIT. The British scientist and writer, CP Snow, was invited to give a talk on "Scientists and Decision Making." During his talk, Snow described the gap that would exist between understanding the nature of the new computer technology that was being developed and the understanding of government officials who would have the responsibility for the decisions about how to support the development of computer technology. Snow explained how such a problem required a situation similar to a phenomenon that in physics is called Brownian Motion. Referring to what happened in Great Britain after World War II when the whole society began discussing the need for national health care, Snow outlines this phenomenon: "I believe that the healtiest decisions of society occur by something more like Brownian movement. All kinds of people all over the place suddenly get smitten with the same sort of desire, with the same sort of interest at the same time. This forms a concentration of pressure and of direction. These concentrations of pressure gradually filter their way through to the people whose nominal responsibility it is to put the legislation into a written form." Shortly after the talks for the MIT centennial, Licklider was invited to join the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to set up an office for research in computer science and an office for research in behavioral science. The office for research in computer science he called the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO). Licklider was its first director and he was followed by Ivan Sutherland. There were 1974, Licklider was invited to return as director. In his writing and talks after he left the IPTO in 1975, Licklider describes the problems he encountered to get support for basic research in computer science within the US Department of Defense and the need for citizens who will actively take up the effort to deal with the problems when they develop. Licklider is not asking for citizens to vote on every issue. Instead he outlines how voting is insufficient as a way to work to promote the public interest. He writes: "(V)oting in the absence of understanding defines only the public attitude, not the public interest. It means that many public spirited individuals must study, model, analyze, argue, write, criticize, and work out each issue and each problem until they reach consensus or determine that none can be reached -- at which point there may be occasion for voting." (Licklider, 1979, p. 126) Licklider describes the need for citizen involvement in government decisions to help determine how to support the continuing development of computer technology. More significantly, Licklider proposes that people will not be interested in government processes until they have a means to participate in those processes. He foresees how computer developments will provide that means. He writes: "Computer power to the people is essential to the realization of a future in which most citizens are informed about, and interested in, the process of government." ((Licklider, 1979, p. 126) The emergence of a public spirited online citizenry that Licklider believed so important to the continued support and development of computer and networking technology was identified through the research done by a college student in the early 1990s. In 1992-3, as part of his research, the student, Michael Hauben, posted a series of questions and some preliminary research about the developing network on Usenet newsgroups. (Usenet is a worldwide discussion forum.) He also posted his questions on a few Internet mailing lists. Through subsequent posts, and analyzing the replies he received, he recognized that a new form of consciousness, a new identity was being acquired by many of those who who wrote him. People online were not only interested in how the developing Net was contributing to their own lives, but also many were seeking to spread access to the Internet to others. Michael had seen the word 'net.citizen' referred to online. Thinking about the social concern and consciousness he had found among those who wrote him, and about the non-geographical character of a net based form of citizenship, he contracted 'net.citizen' into the word 'netizen'. Netizen has come to reflect the online social identity discovered doing this research. Michael wrote a paper titled, "The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People's Lives" describing the contributions he received from many parts of the world. This research was done in 1992-1993 just at the time when the Internet was spreading to countries and networks around the world which were becoming connected to the Internet. Michael posted his paper on Usenet and several Internet mailing lists on July 6, 1993. People around the world wrote that they found the paper of interest and the term netizen quickly spread, not only in the online world, but soon began appearing in newspapers and other publications offline. I collaborated with Michael, also doing research and writing that was posted online. One of the people who found our writing of interest suggested we gather them into a book. We collected our papers into an online book titled "Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net" which was put online in January 1994. It is important to distinguish between the more general usage the media has promoted, that anyone online is a netizen, and the usage that reserves the title 'netizen' for the online user who actively participates to make the net and the world it is part of a better place: "Netizens...are people who understand it takes effort and action on each and everyone's part to make the Net a regenerative and vibrant community and resource. Netizens are people who decide to devote time and effort into making the Net, this new part of our world, a better place." Michael Hauben, talk given on November 24, 1995 at the Hypernetwork '95, Beppu Bay Conference in Beppu, Japan. The theme of the conference was "The Netizen Revolution and the Regional Information Infrastructure." Individuals around the world have adopted and helped to spread the consciousness and identity of the netizen. An especially interesting development at the present time are the netizens of South Korea. South Korea is one of the most wired nations in the world. Over 70% of the population have access to high speed Internet. Along with the spread of high speed Internet access in Korea is the development of netizenship among the Korean population. Researchers in South Korea are documenting the interactive, collaborative processes that the netizens of Korea are using to have an impact on Korean society. One particularly interesting aspect of these developments is that online processes are being adopted by formerly offline institutions and that online clubs have developed offline organizational forms as well. Also the studies of these researchers document how online collaborative discussion processes among Korean netizens are creating the kinds of collaborative social models that Licklider believed were needed for scientific and social advancement. Implications and Research Questions Raised by Work The online plastic collaboration which makes possible interactive modeling that Licklider and Taylor describe in their 1968 paper is a helpful analogy through which to view the online world that has evolved as the Internet has developed and spread around the world. The social consciousness of users as online citizens, as netizens, has also evolved and spread. In this symposium today we will hear other talks which will explore or differ with the framework I am proposing. I want to argue for the need for specific studies, whether historical or contemporaneous, of how the interactive collaborative modeling that Licklider proposed as essential to further social and scientific development of technology is being explored via the Internet. Also I want to propose the need to bring this area of study into the public policy activities of those who are trying to contribute to the continued development of the Internet and the management of its infrastructure. For example, the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) meetings being held in conjunction with the UN demonstrate the need for an appropriate model for the management of the Internet's infrastructure. But outdated models that developed prior to the Internet are dominating the discourse among those involved in the WSIS process. There are a number of other research questions that arise from my paper and study. I hope those interested in these issues will find a way to continue the discussion begun in this symposium after the Congress as well. Notes: 1. Actually the research organization was the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (NDRE, "Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt"),] 2. Also Licklider had made an engineering breakthrough which is referred to as "clipped speech". He was able to identify what small part of a the place on the soundwave was critical for the sound to be perceived. (This was helpful to the US military during WWII in identifying how pilots could get help hearing vital sounds despite lots of background noise.) 3. You may notice, pherhaps, that this description by C.P. Snow of a form of Brownian Motion for society, sounds similar in some ways to the concept of the 'public sphere' that the German philospher Jurgen Habermas explores in his writing. The process for citizen involvement in the development of computer technology that Licklider outlines is a process that characterizes the kind of discussion that I found on some of the earliest mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups that developed in the early 1980s. This process functioned for needed technical discussion, such as with the ARPANET TCP/IP Digest when the cutover to TCP/IP was carried out. (See Ronda Hauben, "A Study of the ARPANET TCP/IP Digest and of the Role of Online Communication in the Transition from the ARPANET to the Internet", http://umcc.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/tcpdraft.txt) Such discussion also helped to develop and spread the vision for ubiquitous computer neworking that was discussed on the Human Nets mailing list and other mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups during the 4. Netizens are those who embodied the social conscious and public purpose which Licklidier considered important for the continued development of computer technology and the public policy to support that development. version: talk.july26.txt on July 26, 2005