The 1960s: Communication breakdown?!
In 1962, during the Cold War, the United States was concerned about the lack of a communication network between cities, states, and military bases after a possible nuclear attack. The U.S. Air Force commissioned the RAND Corporation to conduct a study on how the United States could maintain command and control after a nuclear bombing and the means for a retaliatory strike.

The RAND Corporation examined this complex issue, and in 1964, it published a study that proposed a decentralized network in which "all nodes are equal and each node is able to originate, travel, and receive messages." These messages would be divided into separate "packets," and each packet would travel individually between two different source nodes (which essentially are computers), and could travel by multiple routes.

By the late 1960s, the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) funded a computer-networking project called ARPANET. The research focused on RAND's ideology of a packet-switched network - that is, in the ARPANET system, information would never travel the same route twice.

The first nodes of this network were four computers; each one located at four universities: UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, University of Utah, and Stanford Research Institute. Most users of this security-conscious system were university researchers and military personnel.

The 1970s: ARPANET holds onto its success
From the beginning ARPANET was a success story because of its decentralized structure, and because it could accommodate many machine types. The scientific and defense communities faithfully used e-mail to collect and discuss research data and - believe it or not - to gossip! During this decade, access to ARPANET still remained limited to research universities and the defense community.

The 1980s: Decade of significant contributions
Most notably, 1982 was the year when the Internet got its name. During the 1980s, there were many significant contributions to the expansion of the Internet, such as the inventions of a new Internet Protocol, a router, and a new super-network:

• TCPIP

ARPANET's standard for communication was Network Control Protocol (NCP), which enabled one message to be delivered to many network subscribers. It wasn't until 1982 when Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) - the common language of all Internet computers - was created.

TCP enables all computers to communicate with each other, and the IP provides a way for messages to find their way through the network. Hence, every computer on the network is connected to every other computer. How does this work?

The information moves across the network in packets (TCP). These packets tell the network where they are going and they pass from computer to computer to their final destination (IP). Essentially, people had the capability to communicate with each other even if they weren’t on the same network. For example, when the defense community broke away from ARPANET and formed its own MILNET, TCP/IP had the capability to link these two networks.

• Routers

In the early 1980s, universities around the country communicated online with each other; however, online communication between two departments on a university campus was complicated and time-consuming.

At Stanford University, for example, in order for information to be shared between two departments, "the data would travel through the ARPANET from a local network, broadcast through the net, and then be received at an ARPANET IMP terminal in another building," writes David Bunnell, in Making the Cisco Connection. Most often, students would travel between campus buildings to obtain the information and save it on 5-1/4" floppy disks - do you remember those enormous disks?

According to Bunnell, two Stanford University students named Len and Sandy solved this network dilemma. As legend has it, Len and Sandy were dating and wanted to communicate with each other via e-mail, bypassing the university's local network and the ARPANET. So, they invented the router, a black-box device that enables computers to share information with each other and not go through a "third-party" network, which at that time was ARPANET. In short, their computers were able to "talk" directly to each other. Len and Sandy married and founded Cisco, Inc.

• NSF connects supercomputers

In 1986, the National Science Foundation (NSF) developed a network to connect researchers across the country to several supercomputer centers. NSFNET, which is the foundation for the U.S. segment of the Internet, uses transmission lines (e.g., telephone and satellite links) to carry traffic long distance at very high speeds. Today, more than 80 countries host computers and networks that connect to NSFNET and the Internet.

The last decade: Good-bye ARPANET, hello Internet!
By 1990, ARPANET dissolved, leaving the Internet as the communication tool. About two years later, the World Wide Web was formed. In 1993, there were 313 Web site addresses. As time passed, more and more people, corporations, and government agencies started to create their own homepages. Even Customs got into the act (see Customs Web site timeline below). Today there are well over 22 million Web sites.

Now that we know the nuts and bolts of the Internet's history, what will be its future?

According to Jeff Smith, Customs Webmaster, people use the Internet to be more efficient, and Customs and other federal agencies are headed toward a more transactional-based model on the Web. "I believe that any transaction that can be moved to the Web will be moved," says Smith. We will undoubtedly see this happening in the next five years."

"As we move toward a more mobile society, wireless technology will take hold, and I would expect Customs to plan for this inevitable reality. As for 20 years down the road, who knows? Technology is evolving so rapidly and exponentially, what we call the Internet today may be something entirely different in 20 years."

U.S. Customs Today welcomes Web topics for upcoming issues. Send your ideas to denise.a.mahalek@customs.treas.gov.